JakSpade

Re: Pulp Hero Resources Den Valdron's Fantasy Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs http://www.erbzine.com/mag14/1402.html Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute Site Since 1996 ~ Over 5,000 Webpages and Webzines in Archive Presents Volume 1402

Re: Nicktoons Presents: Skyland It doesn't look like the show is very old at all. So far, they've only showed three episodes, and I haven't seen any further promos. Of course, I haven't been surfing Nicktoons much. I just happened to catch it when they were playing a marathon of the three episodes. jak

Re: Nicktoons Presents: Skyland I've seen the last two episodes. The two kids are wanted by the Sphere. In the last episode, they fly off to a Chinese stronghold (name escapes me) to get a message from their mother sent to the stronghold's master (a rather powerful Seijen). On the way, they run into three Sphere fighters (piloted by robot mooks) who chase them to the stronghold. There is a very tense scene (very Star Wars Ep1 pod racing feel) where they zoom between floating land masses to escape the fighters. They punch the gas (after getting an engine hit) to force their little fighter to slide between two land masses before they collide. The hotshot pilot then has to crash land his fighter on an open area on a floating island. Very cool, very cinematic. jak

Hey everyone, I caught a new Nicktoons animation this weekend called Skyland, which seemed like a mixture of pulp, Star Wars, and anime. The year is 2251, and the Earth has been fractured into floating islands that exist in the atmosphere, high above the cold dead center. Humanity is trying to survive, but a powerful empire, known as the Sphere, is trying to take control of the remaining settlements surrounding the once whole Earth. But there is hope for humanity. A young boy (a hotshot pilot), and his sister (a powerful psi called Seijin) join a ragtag pirate rebellion to fight against the Sphere. With exotic locales, floating pirate ships and fighters that push the boundries of speed, Skyland appears to be a thrilling ride. http://www.nicktoonsnetwork.com/shows/skyland/ jak

Re: Getting the “Pulp Feel” with Hero When dealing with OCV calculations, I always stress to the players that they keep their OCV calculated this way: Add 11+OCV and subtract 3d6 and tell me what DCV you hit. I then tell them whether they hit or not. Much easier than comparing values and making the math more complex than it needs to be. As far as using Fight in the Skies or Crimson Skies for dogfight rules, I say Go For It. Everything's got an airspeed and weapons. Compare the guy with the rocketpack in speed and maneuverability, and either treat him like a similar aircraft, or make up your own stats for him. jak

Re: Glider Tank Wow. It's amazing that they got the dadgum thing off the ground! At least long enough to take a picture. Interesting find. jak

Re: Help me create a Pulp Island..... Hmmm. Here's a suggestion... Take Inner Earth, and turn it inside-out! There's your island... jak

I'm posting this here because I couldn't think of putting it anywhere else. It's an excerpt from a SciFi.com newswire that came to me thru email... If this isn't pulp, I don't know what is... SciFi Essential Books: The Sky People by S. M. Stirling Available Nov. 14, 2006, from Tor http://www.scifi.com/essentials/skypeople/ Marc Vitrac was born in Louisiana in the early 1960s, about the time the first interplanetary probes delivered the news that Mars and Venus were teeming with life — even human life. At that point, the "Space Race" became the central preoccupation of the great powers of the world. Now, in 1988, Marc has been assigned to Jamestown, the U.S. Commonwealth base on Venus, near the great Venusian city of Kartahown. Set in a countryside swarming with sabertooths and dinosaurs, Jamestown is home to a small band of American and allied scientist-adventurers. But there are flies in this ointment — and not only the Venusian dragonflies, with their yard-wide wings. The biologists studying Venus's life are puzzled by the way it not only resembles that on Earth, but is virtually identical to it. The EastBloc has its own base at Cosmograd, in the highlands to the south, and relations are frosty. And attractive young geologist Cynthia Whitlock seems impervious to Marc's warm Cajun charm. Meanwhile, at the western end of the continent, Teesa of the Cloud Mountain People leads her tribe in a conflict with the Neanderthal-like beastmen who have seized her folk's sacred caves. Then an EastBloc shuttle crashes nearby, and the beastmen acquire new knowledge … and AK-47s. Jamestown sends its long-range blimp to rescue the downed EastBloc cosmonauts, not suspecting that the answer to the jungle planet's mysteries might lie there, among tribal conflicts and traces of a power that made Earth's vaunted science seem as primitive as the tribesfolk's blowguns. As if that weren't enough, there's an enemy agent on board the airship…. Extravagant and effervescent, The Sky People is alternate-history SF adventure at its best.

Re: Pulparize It! Survivor Contestants answer a newspaper ad for a contest to win all manner of prizes, in a contest to find the heartiest human. If they would submit to being subjected to some routine tests, the contestants would then participate in a variety of physical and mental tests. The winner would then have their identities broadcast on national radio, and recieve all the prizes, with the other contestants getting slightly less valuable consolation gifts. The contestants are then whisked away to a far away isolated location (an island, a valley deep in the Amazon, or high in the Andes mountains) and then left to their own devices for a while, until they will be contacted by the radio managers. What the ad doesn't tell the contestants is that the area belongs to a local mad scientist, willing to test his new weird science inventions on the unsuspecting contestants. No mention of physical or mental type of person is described in the ad, no description of the tests performed are provided, so a variety of people apply for the event. The contestants are highly scrutinized mentally and physically before the subjects are selected. The local area where the contestants are relocated is crawling with agents carrying high tech equipment, along with all manner of traps, genetically and mechanically enhanced animals, and other roaming weird science automatons. The contestants must traverse all manner of deception, attack, and puzzle in order to reach civilization, to survive. If they do so, any attempt to contact the "radio program" will lead to dead ends.

Re: Pulp Hero Resources HOLY COW!!! New York City Subway Historical Maps http://www.nycsubway.org/maps/historical.html jak

Re: [Hooks] News articles that could be Pulp Adventures Win, Lose, Draw: The Great Subway Map Wars http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/nyregion/thecity/03maps.html?ex=1314936000&en=cf4c07d233866403&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Re: [Hooks] News articles that could be Pulp Adventures I don't know if this has already been posted or not... I got this from a d20 pulp list... Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors Super-troopers: Stalin wanted Planet of the Apes-like troops, insensitive to pain and hardship. http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2434192005 jak

Re: Getting the “Pulp Feel” with Hero I really like Savage Worlds, but I'm kinda getting tired of everyone suggesting it for every type of play. I just don't think it can cut everything as well as Hero. IMHO, moving from Hero to Savage Worlds is alright, but it just doesn't fill the void for me. I like the way they have the system set up, and it does play fast and furious, but the system just doesn't seem whole to me. To me, I like to see the underlying system, rather than the lists generated by the system. The edges and hinderances are nice, but they just seem created and a cost slapped on them. It's kind of like a "teach a man to fish" thing. If I know that a 1pt edge is light, a 2pt edge is moderate and a 3pt edge is heavy, and the same with hinderances, it would feel better to me. And the exploding dice is another thing. It's great to put forth a cinematic feel, but sometimes it can get wild and trump the story. Bah! Enough ranting on this. I've had this discussion with all my friends. It's probably the reason why we aren't playing Hero right now, just a bunch of SW games... jak

Re: Pulp Hero Resources Don't know how well this goes with Pulp Hero, but here goes anyway... Jonny Quest theme music WebArchive.org: Palm Key Unofficial Classic Jonny Quest Episode Guide http://web.archive.org/web/20040919195859/http://www.palmkey.net/ For your PH games... jak

Re: Popular Mechanics- Wow Hey Steve, I've found the topic for the next HPA: Boy Mechanic 225 Things to Build http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/home_journal_news/2631071.html Edit: It would have to be a weird science book for PH... jak

Re: Popular Mechanics- Wow Yeah, it looks like it, for sea planes. jak

Re: Popular Mechanics- Wow The Red Snow mobile is right out of Jonny Quest... ah the memories. jak

Re: Where to start? I'm more concerned with how well the Cossack will fit in as far as history goes. I know they were majorly involved in the Russian Revolution in 1917-18, but don't know much more about what happened with them after that. Is there reference in the PH book? jak

Re: Where to start? Or, perhaps the crash wasn't as hard as everyone thought, which brings forth rise in all kinds of scientific and technological boosts. But, of course, that would stray from the timeline, perhaps putting off WWII. Or not.

Re: Today's Bad Idea I thought Firewang was a pyromaniac hero from the Deep South... jak

Re: Where to start? Wow, thanks for the age generation ideas, TM, and all of the other info, guys. I guess I just have to decide what type of campaign I want and then focus on those aspects, whether it's a longer world exploration 1920s or a quicker exotic locales globe trotting 1930s campaign. jak

Re: Getting the “Pulp Feel” with Hero I think that one of the things that we tend to forget is that a lot of the elements that make the genre "actiony" are just story elements, not mechanics issues. And it's how we model those story elements using the game system that make it more exciting. Removing some elements of HERO and adding others to model the action elements of the typical pulp story doesn't make HERO any less the game system that it is. Sure, you could use some other system, but for those of you who use and like HERO, you use it because the pieces fit so well together that you can model what you want without losing the system you like. So, yes, the heroes fear bullets, falling, and mummies. But they survive because they are lucky, or good at what they do, or because they are the main characters of the story. The game system gives you all the parts you need to model all these story elements in game mechanics, or fudge them as you feel. It really shouldn't be any more difficult to model pulp in HERO than any other game system, unless that system has been taylored specifically to deal with pulp story elements. jak

Re: Getting the “Pulp Feel” with Hero Here's the link to RDU Neil's house rules for Luck Chits, a lot like Hero Points, Bennies, or Action Points in other games... jak

Re: Getting the “Pulp Feel” with Hero I'm starting to put my ideas down for a Pulp Hero game, and I find that the GM is going to have to keep a closer eye on pulp characters than regular, because I've noticed that with a lot of variance in the character types, skill levels tend to fly around a lot, and you have to make sure that the characters each have to be able to do ONE THING really well (a pilot be good at piloting, a soldier be good at fighting, etc). Once that gauge is in place, I think it will fall into place a lot better. Actually, in it's current form, it's not that bad. HERO does a good job of managing combats in a way that everyone is capable of monitoring their characters up to any level of minutia, a lot like a miniatures game. But, fortunately enough, HERO is easy to alter (since all the pieces fit so well together) to fall in line with a fast paced freewheeling game. When I run my game, I'm going to remove the use of SPD and the speed chart. I won't be spending points for speed to round anything off or anything. If people want to purchase another attack, they can do so for 20pts, and that will allow them to make an additional half-action during their round. Other than that, you get your actions as normal during combat. Well, I am adding Luck Chits (house rules from the boards) to cover Hero Point type action, with rerolls, and dramatic editing for the players, so they have a little more control over the drama. Mostly keeping to the essentials. There are some other ideas that I like from other games (such as aspects from Spirit of the Century), but they wouldn't fit with HERO. Like I said earlier, I will write my PCs and NPCs so that they have at most ONE THING that they are really good at. This will probably include some Talents or power-like abilities. But I won't dip into the powers much at all, unless it has something to do with weird science or special abilities (which will be rare). It depends on whether you want to go with an environment like The Rocketeer, where everyone's a skilled normal, with very little weird tech, or something like Sky Captain, where everyone is a skilled normal, and there's a lot of tech, to something like The Shadow, where everyone is a skilled normal with unusual powers/magic/abilities. Well, I'd rather be accurate, but I tend to float towards the middle here when confronted with fast, feverous, flavor.

Hey all you herophiles out there... I've been contemplating running a pulp game for some time now, but I can't decide what time period to start. My original idea was to start in the 1920s, with a globetrotting adventure game, but there's a lot of technology that hadn't been invented yet. So, I've decided to ask for help. I've decided to write up characters for my players, so I know them a little better when we start, and I also don't have to sit here and listen to them complain about creating characters. So, here's a list of the characters I've got. What time period do you think they'd best be suited for? An All American football player, male, who's been surrounded by scandel A female Steppes Cossack, sent away by her father, to learn how to be a proper Cossack warrior, now searching for her father after her return A rash pilot who fought in the end of the Great War, who has decided to see the world A mysterious masked avenger, who, after a terrible tragedy, decides to clean of the mean streets with his helpful gadgets and inventions So far, that's what I've got. I don't know if the Cossack will fit into a later date starting point. What do you think?