what gives your pulp its pep?

[wyldspirit]

So you got dragons breathing balefire in fantasy games. In the supers corner are people that can punch through tank armor. So what do you, as a player in pulp, find that holds your intrest. Is it character development, 2 fisted action, or something else that keeps you coming back?

[Peregrine]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

1. The combination of (relatively) modern technology and society with Ancient Things Not Yet Understood and Places Not Yet Visited, ala Indiana Jones or The Mummy (recent movie series).

 

2. Proto-supers. Doc Savage, Tarzan, Hugo Danner, Aarn Munroe, Iron John, Richard Seaton, the Shadow, the Phantom, the Rocketeer, The New Accelerator, etc.

[bubba smith]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'm with pergerine on this

[Curufea]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'd go more with "problem solving through creative pugilism" - the noir and/or hard nosed cynical detective attitudes.

[DusterBoy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'm with Peregrine too, but I'd add headlong, two fisted action, glamourous femme (maybe-not-so) fatales and mad science.

 

And I miss Tales of the Golden Monkey.

 

And don't tell me you don't, either.

[bubba smith]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'm with Peregrine too, but I'd add headlong, two fisted action, glamourous femme (maybe-not-so) fatales and mad science.

 

And I miss Tales of the Golden Monkey.

 

And don't tell me you don't, either.

don't forget the occasional catfight

[DusterBoy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

don't forget the occasional catfight

 

I'll get the popcorn

[Spence]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'd go more with "problem solving through creative pugilism" - the noir and/or hard nosed cynical detective attitudes.

 

Yep, there is something strangely satisfying about a world where a little two fisted violence can solve any problem

[tkdguy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I'm with Peregrine too, but I'd add headlong, two fisted action, glamourous femme (maybe-not-so) fatales and mad science.

 

And I miss Tales of the Golden Monkey.

 

And don't tell me you don't, either.

That show is one of my all-time favorites.

[bubba smith]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

i saw a couple of episodes ,not bad

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Mystery, because the world is vaster and stranger than it can ever be.

 

When you finally ride the lifeboat in across the surf from the wreck of the ship that went aground in a place that should only be deep ocean, you face an nexplored mountain range cloaked in a deep forests and cleft by a huge river that could never not have a city at its mouth in any land on the map.

As you ride towards the rendezvous on the camels, an empty city rises before you at the margin of the mountain range that the Touregs will not permit to be mapped. Alabaster stairs are gleaming, seeming to wait for a galleys to glide into dock, though no sea has flooded this blasted erg in the memory of man...

A sabretooth tiger waiting in your hotel room when you get back from interviewing your client.

A mysterious detective agency, hunting for people, all connected in some way in generations unknown. Is the desperate, harried man interviewing you for a job, or suspect that you are one of the people he's looking for? And why did he tun on that device in the corner before letting you have a clear look at his face?

At the deepest layer of the dig, where Neolithic village gives way to a few scattered tools, an engraved plate in a script well-known to the half-Cherokee archaeologist, even though it is ten thousand years older than Sequoyah, and speaks of an era before the sea drank the gleaming cities...

[DusterBoy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Mystery, because the world is vaster and stranger than it can ever be.

 

When you finally ride the lifeboat in across the surf from the wreck of the ship that went aground in a place that should only be deep ocean, you face an nexplored mountain range cloaked in a deep forests and cleft by a huge river that could never not have a city at its mouth in any land on the map.

As you ride towards the rendezvous on the camels, an empty city rises before you at the margin of the mountain range that the Touregs will not permit to be mapped. Alabaster stairs are gleaming, seeming to wait for a galleys to glide into dock, though no sea has flooded this blasted erg in the memory of man...

A sabretooth tiger waiting in your hotel room when you get back from interviewing your client.

A mysterious detective agency, hunting for people, all connected in some way in generations unknown. Is the desperate, harried man interviewing you for a job, or suspect that you are one of the people he's looking for? And why did he tun on that device in the corner before letting you have a clear look at his face?

At the deepest layer of the dig, where Neolithic village gives way to a few scattered tools, an engraved plate in a script well-known to the half-Cherokee archaeologist, even though it is ten thousand years older than Sequoyah, and speaks of an era before the sea drank the gleaming cities...

 

And continues ". . . Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired and sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to traead the jewelled thrones of the earth beneath his sandalled feet."

 

The scrolls appear to titled "The Nemidian Chronicles".

[Barton]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

ACTION, ACTION, ACTION.

As a GM I try to keep the action very high, lots of chases, lots of fights/combat.

But, I like to have some investigation/mystery.

Mine is a air based adventure, so airships and other mad science exists.

[The Main Man]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

The sheer romantic quality that grants us entertaining escapism.

 

Morality is black and white, righteous violence solves many things, and the world is full of wonder and mystery.

 

It's basically like being a kid again while still being able to drink beer.

[assault]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

Moxie.

[bubba smith]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

The sheer romantic quality that grants us entertaining escapism.

 

Morality is black and white, righteous violence solves many things, and the world is full of wonder and mystery.

 

It's basically like being a kid again while still being able to drink beer.

quoted for truth

[Spence]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

The sheer romantic quality that grants us entertaining escapism.

 

Morality is black and white, righteous violence solves many things, and the world is full of wonder and mystery.

 

It's basically like being a kid again while still being able to drink beer.

 

repped

[Kal'El Wayne]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I love pulp because in pulp, you can do anything, or at least a low level equivalent. Literally every character is Batman, or rather, the Shadow. If magic exists, then the pulp version of Dr. Strange only had to study for one year. Admittedly, his magic spells and rituals are weaker but he faces weaker foes, so it evens out. Tony Stark is the same as he normally is, except that he wears a rocket pack, scanner helmet, blaster gloves and a forcefield belt instead of a full suit of electronic armour. Professor X is just a normal human but he studied with a Korean zen master for a year. The Hulk is just some home chemistry lab experiment gone wrong. And so on.

[bubba smith]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I love pulp because in pulp' date=' you can do anything, or at least a low level equivalent. Literally every character is Batman, or rather, the Shadow. If magic exists, then the pulp version of Dr. Strange only had to study for one year. Admittedly, his magic spells and rituals are weaker but he faces weaker foes, so it evens out. Tony Stark is the same as he normally is, except that he wears a rocket pack, scanner helmet, blaster gloves and a forcefield belt instead of a full suit of electronic armour. Professor X is just a normal human but he studied with a Korean zen master for a year. The Hulk is just some home chemistry lab experiment gone wrong. And so on.[/quote']

goood logic here's another the hulk [or the fantastic four if you prefer] gained their power in a wierd science experimen gone wrong

[H-Knight]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

The possible that did not happen, but is now happening in the game being played right here.

That is a lot of my Pulp experience; the InterWar years are ripe with pivot points.

That and just about everything folks said above.

 

To accomplish that, I combine the influence of nearly every Pulp game rules system out there to make sure the game is the best there can be.

 

I too miss Tales of the Gold Monkey.

Then again, I miss Fantasy Island, Buck Rogers and the original Galactica as well.

[austenandrews]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

It's basically like being a kid again while still being able to drink beer.

You mean I wasn't supposed to drink beer when I was a kid?

 

 

 

I like two-fisted, normals-level adventuring. I like the nostalgic tropes, the indulgence of historical & scientific romance and the sheer anything-goes-ness.

[DusterBoy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

You mean I wasn't supposed to drink beer when I was a kid?

 

 

 

I like two-fisted, normals-level adventuring. I like the nostalgic tropes, the indulgence of historical & scientific romance and the sheer anything-goes-ness.

 

 

Ssshh! The ABC has spies everythere! lol

 

I like the Crimson Skies background, even though it means that North America maybe wouldn't have got involved in WW2. There's something about a beautiful female hotshot fighter pilot in '30's flight gear. Yummy.

 

The plane designs in Crimson Skies kick arse.

[Vondy]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I've always loved the fact that pulp never tried to cater to the anemic sensibilities of the literateurs and had no fear of being ridiculous. There is a certain zany sensibility to pulp that holds true irrespective of what pulp genre is being written, be it adventure, hero, horror, space, sport, western, war, weird menace, ad infinitum. Even when the writers tried to break out of the genre limitations and rise above - and they did succeed occassionally - there was a dashing devil-may-care air about it.

[Spence]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

I've always loved the fact that pulp never tried to cater to the anemic sensibilities of the literateurs and had no fear of being ridiculous. There is a certain zany sensibility to pulp that holds true irrespective of what pulp genre is being written' date=' be it adventure, hero, horror, space, sport, western, war, weird menace, ad infinitum. Even when the writers tried to break out of the genre limitations and rise above - and they did succeed occassionally - there was a dashing devil-may-care air about it.[/quote']

 

In other words, Pulp is just plain fun

[Peregrine]

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

 

More to the point, pulp deliberately and unashamedly seeks to entertain, with no pretensions of "art/literature" that preclude entertainment.