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Pulp Hero


AlHazred

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Well, all of the gaming resources I have for pulp reference have been mentioned so I'll just stick to the other reference material. I managed to find a 1929 world atlas at a used book store that has been very useful. I also found out that Time magazine published a series of books highlighting the top news stories of the year for each year called Time Capsules. I'm not sure what years they cover but I have an almost complete run from 1916 thru 1948.

 

Being at work now I can't remember all of the books I have. If you want to drop me an email at fazhoul@yahoo.com I'll send you a list of what I've got.

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I've got both of the Green Hornet movie serials on VHS, and while there's some sound glitches early in the first one it was worth the time to hunt them down.

 

Dover Books has an "Everyday Fashion" series -- the book on the 1920's is a good reference for what normal people were wearing (as opposed to what Hollywood thinks everyone was wearing). The artwork's black and white, but clear.

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Related Thread

 

For anyone who has not already stumbled upon it, the "Question about Resources" thread I started is not about pulps per se, but is about (a subset of) the era. Some of the answers posted there might be useful to folks interested in pulp gaming.

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Originally posted by Shadowpup

The background for Crimson Skies might be useful for a pulp game too. I'm not really sure where to find good info other than what comes in the box for the table top game.

 

Try the Crimson Skies website. Here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/

 

I should have thought of that. I love Crimson Skies and was very disappointed that the sequel is only coming out for the X-Box.

 

Still it's an intriguing Pulp style setting.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'v read alot of Doc Savage, but my problem with Doc was always the lack of fantastic elements in his adventures. Aliens and dinosaurs are always explained away as tricks by conmen. Notable exceptions to this include:

The Cold Death, The Secret in the Sky, and The Spook Legion, which feature death rays, anti-gravity flying machines, and invisible crooks respectively. I got these by cruising ebay at work. They are curently out of print, and as far as I know there are no e-texts, and you probably won't find them at the library.

I'm also a big fan of the WPA books, specifically The Wpa Guide to New York City . If you can't wait to see whether or not Allston's Pulp Apple project ever sees fruition and want to write your own 1930's new york type setting, this is the reference to start with.

Really enjoyed Frost he was kind of a Sherlock Holmes for the pulp era.

Also a big fan of The Spider. You can get his books here. Just browsing the titles of his novels will give you tons of adventure ideas.

I don't think anyone mentioned free shadow pdf's. This one is neat, not just because it's free, but because they also inlcude the illustrations which originally went with the story.

If I need inspiration, I stroll the pages of Mr. Nevins. Truly he is a superior human being.

There are also Yahoo groups for Pulp_Games and AonAdventure which can be mined for ideas.

 

Heh, just couldn't let the pulp thread die without chiming in

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Originally posted by Toadmaster

Wasn't there a Crimson Skies RPG from FASA? I bought the computer game awhile back and thought it would make a good setting (I love anything with zeppelins and art deco).

 

Crimson Skies was originally released as a boardgame. In much the same way the Battletech was. FASA never did put out a roleplaying version although when the Unknown Aces e-book was released by HERO it was suggested that it could be used for role-playing in the Crimson Skies Universe.

 

A few years later FASA licensed Microsoft to make it into a computer game.

 

Hope this helps.

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Gear Krieg!

 

Originally posted by Shadowpup

Gear Kreig is supposed to be Pulpish too but I know nothing about it.

 

Gear Krieg: Two-Fisted Pulp Super-Science in a World at War! is a neat idea from the Dream Pod 9 guys. The game design basically started with the idea that Germany could have constructed large "Walkers" to rearm in secret after its defeat in WWI; the "Walkers" are, of course, transforming mecha that ordinarily resemble ground vehicles with wheels (to get where they want to go quickly) but can be transformed into large legged fighting machines. This basic idea (introducing mecha into WWII) was used in the setting in the Dream Park module The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg, and it supplied a sprinboard to create a setting in which a lot of high-tech "paper projects" actually managed to get constructed.

 

Great setting, and good execution. Its application to a standard Pulp campaign might be rather limited, though.

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Originally posted by AlHazred

Doc Savage is nice, but very often he goes over the top; I tried to stat him out for my Golden Age/Pulp game, but he came in at way too many points to be a good "role model" for the players to base their characters on.

 

Slightly more equivalent to a starting PC's power level is The Avenger, also by "Kenneth Robeson". His team is much more useful and interesting, and he is not unbeatable.

 

In that regard, The Shadow (book version, not the radio Shadow) can be built on 250 points.

 

Others I haven't managed to read yet are The Spider and Operator 5. Have to haunt eBay until these guys show up...

 

Is The Avenger the one who gets whacked upside the head

after his wife and child disappear from the plane they were all

riding on, and winds up becoming an albino overnight?

 

Space Cadet :confused:

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Originally posted by Space Cadet

Is The Avenger the one who gets whacked upside the head after his wife and child disappear from the plane they were all riding on, and winds up becoming an albino overnight?

 

Yup. The Avenger suffered such a shock when his wife and child disappeared, that he went insane for several months. Afterward, his skin and hair were chalk-white, and the muscles in his face unresponsive - they would assume whatever shape he put them in. This allowed him to assume anyone's likeness with a little work; I believe this ability made it into the Champions sourcebook under "Pulp Hero Powers". (As an aside, one of his companions had the "Door Smashing Fists" also in the sidebar.)

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Originally posted by TheImperialKhan

Crimson Skies was originally released as a boardgame. In much the same way the Battletech was. FASA never did put out a roleplaying version although when the Unknown Aces e-book was released by HERO it was suggested that it could be used for role-playing in the Crimson Skies Universe.

 

A few years later FASA licensed Microsoft to make it into a computer game.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Well if the product looked like the Battle tech products then I can see why I thought it was an RPG, FASA seemed to put more background into their "board" games than most.

 

I have no idea what kind of materials will eventually come from this but I ran across this from whiz kids while looking for Crimson Skies stuff on the internet

 

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/wk_article.asp?cid=37438&frame=company

 

even if there is little background it might be good for the mini's

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  • 3 weeks later...

free palm books

 

This site: http://www.memoware.com/

has a whole bunch of free downloadable Palm-format books -- including a bunch of Shadow serials. If you have spare time to read while waiting for progress bars to finish (like I do at work), you can whip out your Palm and read up on the Shadows latest (ok, to me) adventures.

 

Very Pulpy.

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Yep. I have the campaign book they did for Top Secret/SSI. It had a lot of good player and genre information as well as the setting and major character write-ups for their Agent 13 universe. The sampe adventure at the back of the book was a waste of space but the rest of it was useful. TSR also published at least two Agent 13 novels. I enjoyed the first one.

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Guest Dr.Unpossible

http://www.crimsonskies.com/

 

Crimson Skies is absolutly 100% pulp. It's a great setting for an RPG to. Now there was an RPG version of it in the works. I swear I saw it at my local game store. I know I saw a suppliment for "Bullets of Broadway" a NewYork source book. But it may have been just the tactical arial combat sorucebook.

 

Either way, like mentioned before. Its a war game that reads like an RPG sourcebook. If youcan pick up the Boxed set, treat yourself. It's one of my fav games for presentation. One of the most well presented games I have ever seen to be honest. And I don't think I'm exagerating either.

 

Also at the crimson skies site are short story pulps in the Crimson Skies seting.

 

http://www.crimsonskies.com/story/spicy-air.htm

 

All in all a great pulp resource. Also as mentioned above. WizKids is relaunching the title with lil prepainted airplanes. COOL!

 

http://www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/

 

Click on the radio on the left for some "News Flash!" fun

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Sears Catalog

 

Anyone mention the Sears Catalogs yet? Okay, most of the ones in re-production are from the turn of the century (1901). I bought one for the heck of it, and it was indeed a reproduction, from a used bookstore. The thing this is useful for really is finding out what products were actually for sale that early on. There were things for sale in 1901 that I figured weren't available until much later. Also gives you a median price which you can then inflate a tad for 1920's period and considerably for the 1940's.

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Justice Inc.

 

Ah, the memories. I ran a JI campaign for years and still believe it to be one of the best products Hero ever put out. Two more sources I found helpful: The New Nile Empire sourcebook from TORG (a land of pulp heroes and weird science) and the Atlas of World Revolutions, which has some great maps and background on events of the twenties and thirties.

Users of JI will also remember that the "weird talents" such as hypnosis, aura reading, etc. were considerably cheaper than they would be if built using standard Hero rules today, and yet the price seemed totally appropriate given the power levels of the genre. It raises interesting questions on the point scale of relatively low-level campaigns.

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Atlas of World Revolutions?

 

Originally posted by caersidi

Ah, the memories. I ran a JI campaign for years and still believe it to be one of the best products Hero ever put out. Two more sources I found helpful: The New Nile Empire sourcebook from TORG (a land of pulp heroes and weird science) and the Atlas of World Revolutions, which has some great maps and background on events of the twenties and thirties.

 

Please tell me more about the Atlas of World Revolutions. Who published it? Do you know if it's in print? Is it specifically an RPG resource or is it a "regular" book?

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I don't know if its been mentioned before, but another good resource is GURPS Places of Mystery - if you can find one. Its currently out of print, but shows up on ebay and used rpg dealers often. There was talk back when Cliffhangers 2nd was being playtested that they may do an update if there is interest. Don't have any updates - I've been out of the GURPS scene for a while now.

 

Aroooo

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The World Atlas of Revolutions, by Andrew Wheatcroft, 1983, Simon and Schuster. Apparently now outof print but widely available at libraries. For the "Pulp Age", has maps and background articles on such places as Arabia, Russia, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Spain, India and China. I found it invaluable when our JI party went to Turkey in 1922.

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