Note: The following essay is one I wrote for the my Feburary 1999 issue of "Age of Menace", which appeared in issue 282 of the the great APA "Alarums and Excursions", edited by Lee Gold.

It also appeared as one of the earlist of my postings on the Pulp_Games newsgroup, and I thought I'd reprint it here for a wider audience of pulp-rpg aficionados.

::Brian::
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"A Pulp RPG Wish List"

(copyright 1999 Brian Christopher Misiaszek)

I was corresponding with Doc Cross and Matt Stevens recently, and I thought and wrote a little about our discussion on what features should be included in any dream Pulp RPG and accompanying supplements. Since this is one of my most favourite gaming genres, and that it touches other hobbies of mine (ie. cliffhanger serials, OTR, etc.), I spent a little time both thinking about this question. Given that my response became almost an essay on the topic, I thought I would share some this with everyone (and perhaps get some response).

1. Rules that emulate the Genre.

Unfortunately for many pulp RPGs published in the past, they have often been saddled with overly intricate and complicated game engines. While the action in the original source material is fast and furious, hyperkinetic and frenetic, the rules by which pulp styled adventures are played through are anything but. All too often bogged, these rules heavy systems bog down the action with too many die roles, action checks, tables to look up, and so forth (“Justice Inc. and “Daredevils” fit this category). Play is dragged on and on, so that by the end of an evening’s play, little is actually accomplished unless you skip through much of the rules (and if this is the case, what’s the point?). Worse, players try to have their PCs perform faithfully as per the genre, and are rewarded for their efforts with overly rapid and frequent deaths.

Needless to say, this isn’t much fun.

Instead, a pulp RPG should be rules light; nothing should impede the goal of having the action and story from skipping ahead at breakneck speed. The mechanics of a pulp RPG should also help inspire and promote the pulp genre; perhaps having a “combat decoder ring” (similar to those secret decoder rings given away as a radio premium) that could be photocopied and constructed, and then turned to look up the results of die rolls made by the players. Built in mechanics should also allow for player luck in allowing extravagant action, and preventing premature player deaths (be it via brownie points, allowing cheat rolls, etc.).

Such rules should also have built in rewards for playing in genre--fist fights over gun play, allowing yourself to be captured by the villain, etc.--that can be used fairly quickly to help escape from deathtraps, dodge sleeting bullets, and thwart the villain in the end. Finally, the rules should be *fun*; the ingenuity of the GM and the players should be matched by the extravagant fireworks that occur when they collide.

2. Setting: The Pulp Era.

Another issue is the importance of having an interesting pulp background setting. For most pulp RPG supplements (with many out of print, as far as I know) that have come out over the last decade or so have been cursed as being BORING (perhaps the worst thing one can say about a RPG product if you think about it). This list would include Mercenaries Spies & Private Eyes, GURPS Cliffhangers, WEG’s Indiana Jones RPG, among others. Part of the problem is, while many of these pulp RPG supplements state up front that they are inspired from such 1930s and 1940s media as pulp magazines, cliffhanger movies and radio serials, there was little first hand reference to that source material included in *any* of the published products. Instead, most are simply a bland toolbox of adventure locals, seeds, character types, etc., for gaming in the *historical* 1930s, rather than that of the pulp era.

Much of the historical material included in many pulp supplements--time lines, personalities, newsworthy events-- can be easily tracked down by most people in from a plethora of excellent reference sources; its presence okay, but nothing special. *The Pulp Era* was a harder thing to track down, and this is where all of these products have let us down.

Let me elaborate on this a little. In the Pulp Era of the 1930s and 1940s, it is a vivid pulp *fact* that a giant ape climbed the worlds tallest skyscraper in NYC with a blonde girl wearing nothing but a wisp of lace clutched firmly in his hand. In the lurid pulp era, it is a fact that Martians landed in New Jersey Halloween night 1938. In the weird pulp era, masked vigilantes gassed /shot /burned /branded
/”bad-stuffed” villains helter skelter across all major cities to the chagrin of the police, and the delight of the public. World maps from the hidden pulp era included such obscure lands as Maple White Land, Ruritania, Hildago, Terror Island, Skull Island, and other elusive pieces of cartography; many other remote areas of the world were still open for exploration and adventure by adventurers the world around. Only in the Pulp 1930s did mad scientists create gadgets to rival Tesla’s most fevered dreams, did fleets of mighty Zeppelins span the airways and where heroes and villains became truly lived up to their titles in the most outrageous way possible. A major portion of any Pulp RPG should very generously detail the Pulp Era, weaving together a tapestry of newsworthy events that includes not just crime and foreign news, butentertainment, sports, business, and festivals such as World Fairs and technical achievements. Ideally, there would be essays detailing each year of the Pulp era, broad topics such as weird science and the mystic arts covered, evolving world maps where lost worlds and islands pop up like measles, with a broad timeline to summarize its entirety.

Remember, the pulp era isn’t exactly of 1930s and 1940s the way it was; it was this era the way it *should* have been.

3. Pulp Character Archetypes

The examples of character archetypes included in all of these pulp products were okay, but nothing special; there was no over-the-edge excitement in any of the depictions provided of run of the mill whip wielding archeologists, snap-brim fedora wearing detectives, two fisted pilots, and so on. A more obvious flaw were the lack of good examples of Hero Pulp character prototypes for play. By Hero Pulps, I mean that sub-genre of pulp magazines named after a named character--examples of this would be Doc Savage, The Avenger, G8 and his Battle Aces, Secret Agent X, The Shadow, etc.--which seem to be the most popular amongst gamers and pulp fans. I know that that any RPG publisher may have had a hard time directly statting up such trade-marked pulp heroes as The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Spider for copyright reasons, but they could have statted up very close dopplegangers, such as “The Splotch”, “Doc Orion”, and ”The Arachnid”. And such write-ups would be complete, with their attributes, hide-outs, gadgets, pals, villains, and an example list of their exploits each getting a paragraph or two, for one to two pages of write-up for each pulp hero.

4. Creating Pulp Adventures & Campaigns.

All of these previously published pulp RPG supplements made an effort to try to help beginning GMs to create pulp adventures, and some didn’t do a bad job in the attempt. However, they did a poor job at outlining pulp *campaigns*, and the included adventures in many were (lets face it), rather pedestrian. A vivid and lurid pulp setting for
adventure--say a group of PCs with their own rocket-assisted Zeppelin, or a group hired by a kind of shadow “League of Nations”, or those working as a stunt crew for a movie serial film company. You could even have options where the PCs can be juveniles (ala the Hardy Boys, or Little Orphan Annie), or where you can have non-human characters as cartoons, animals and robots (ala “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, “Rin Tin Tin”, and “Captain Future”). I’ve written about several types of campaigns settings myself in various publications, and may give you an idea what I mean; “Weird Masks” (PCs work for a pulp magazine), “Captain Hades” (PCs are pulp writers, who have created a shared alter-ego which they use to fight crime), and “The Radio Heroes” (PCs are writers, actors, sound-men, etc., who work on an adventure radio show, whom the public think is real, as does the criminal underworld!).

5. Example Major Pulp Campaign Setting: "The Pulp Apple"

An adventure background setting is common to many RPGs, but this is
something glossed over in many supplements (perhaps under the assumption that GMs and players would do much of the background work, glossing over the rest). Providing a detailed 1930s pulp era background setting, with maps, personality profiles, fun buildings, and plots would work wonders for getting both GMs and players inspired. One such background may be a Pulp Era version of New York City (aka the “Pulp Apple”).

In a RPG guide to the “Pulp Apple”, the major power players could be detailed (the Mayor and other municipal government officials, the regularly visiting State Governor, the Police Commissioner, multiple business interests, diplomats from foreign governments, etc.). Minor powers (the Press and their owners, Religious leaders, District Attorneys, Union Bosses, Tong leaders, members of the entertainment set, etc.), could also be generously detailed, mixing fact and fancy.
Elements of the Underworld (Gang leaders, their molls, amateur cracksmen, stoolies, thugs, mooks, pawn brokers, streetwalkers, etc.) would be an important inclusion. Unique Personalities (Consulting Detectives, Chief Coroner, 5th Avenue Madams, Museum Curators, The Man of Bronze, The Shadow, etc.), is also a necessity. Your average Joes (Cigarette Girls, cab drivers, taxi Dancers, stevedores, accountants, newspapermen, etc.), that your players could meet could each get a line or two, and Weirdies (1930s SF fans, Pulp writers, straight and weird science inventors, etc.) would be fun or at least interesting to meet.

Having many maps of Pulp Apple would be fun (and useful); from one
showing only important streets of Pulp Manhattan, another districts of the City (Central Park, the Bronx, the Bowery, Broadway, etc.) to a third detailing important addresses in the Pulp Apple (Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, The Natural History Museum, Columbia University, The League of Nations, Nero Wolfe’s offices, Foreign Consular enclaves, Doc Savage’s 86th Floor HQ, Chinatown, the Russian Tea Room, etc.), perhaps in an orthogonal pictographic fashion. Essays covering transportation in the Pulp Apple (walking and the times it takes to run and sprint about, subways, yellow cabs, bridges, ferrys, etc.), business (the Stock Exchange, and Wall Street), Entertainment (Broadway musicals, Harlem jazz clubs, movie stars, radio broadcast shows), and so forth. Important events could be detailed (King Kong’s frolic, the New York World’s Fair, complete with maps; Transatlantic Zeppelin Races with the final destination the Dirigible mooring mast of the Empire State Building, the World Series celebrations, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the destruction of the Statue of Liberty, etc).Finally, various plots and sub-blots to show how these disparate elements can be used all together.

Such a pulp background setting would be a godsend to those who have never visited the real NYC, or have little idea how much things have changed since the 1930s and 1940s.

6. Different Types of Pulp Gaming styles

Besides having a strongly detailed pulp setting for adventure, another drawback of many of these pulp supplements is that they assumed that the gamers using their product would be the standard “sit around the table” gamers; one can use a little more creativity here. Suggestions may be provided to run pulp adventures like an improvised radio play (complete with sound effects, different voices, dimmed lights, etc.) as I’ve mentioned here in past issues of my A&E submissions. Rules may be provided to allow for live-action pulp gaming (with clothing suggestions, props, where to hold such events, adventure ideas, and further reference materials). Printed hand-outs (ala Chaosium’s “Call of Cthulhu”) would be wonderful; blank passport forms, coroner’s death certificates, telegram blanks, air/plane tickets would be great. Even a form of Pulp “Cardboard Heroes” paper miniatures which could be photocopied, coloured, cut out and folded for instant play. Finally, for the more technically adept, even ideas on how to runs such games over Internet Chat lines, E-mail, etc., could be provided.

7. Pulp References and their Gleanings.

Some pulp supplements of the past have at least supplied a decent reference list (both fiction and non-fictional sources; Rolemaster’s is a very decent one, for example) for the pulps, movie serials, and radio shows. There’s a plethora of such material to use, some easy to find (from libraries, or over the Internet), others more difficult to obtain (such as reprints, recordings, original source material). However, some of this material could have be reprinted in this product, else summarized and commented on. Lists of the names of previously published pulp heroes, names of their pulp villains and their modus operendi, and so on. Essays written by pulp writers on their craft, and the formulas and tricks used to create their stories, and over the top characterizatons. List the top 10 radio shows for horror /adventure /mystery, along with the premises behind these popular shows. Provide atop ten list of movie cliffhangers escapes, great deathtraps, modern “pulpish” films (the “Indiana Jones” series, “The Phantom”, “The Phantom”, “The Radioland Murders”), and classics (“The Maltese Falcon”, “D.O.A”, “Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy”). In short, don’t just list what material is out there; provide a taste of it right there and then.

8. Orignal Pulp Artwork.

For some reason, many pulp supplements have had crummy artwork (frex, GURPS Cliffhangers had perhaps the ugliest artwork ever used in a GURPS product). Rather than paying some art-school dropout to produce less than inspirational artwork, they could have reprinted non-copyright pulp artwork. Edmund Shaw (editor of *The Familiar*) had contacted Mr. John Gunnison (publisher of many pulp reprints, and webmaster of www.adventurehouse.com) for the artwork used in my pulp article in *The Familiar* in the past, and came up with many black and white examples that nicely complimented the subject material. Being it was free (well, save for running some ads for Mr. Gunnison in such a product, or paying him a fee), everybody wins. “Justice Inc” had perhaps the most gorgeous cover art of ANY RPG product ever published, and went a long ways towards inspiring people to buy their long out of print game.

Conclusion

In summary, for any new Pulp RPG or supplement to an established RPG engine, the three most important things is 1) don’t make it boring, 2) don’t make it boring, and 3) don’t make it boring!

Make it lurid, vivid, teeth-chattering with excitement, and brimming with adventure and mystery. Have the game rules match the genre, being rules light, welcome to cinematic hyperbole, and robust enough to allow for generous PC luck and survivability. Generously outline and bring to life the “pulp era” as described in the adventure media of that era; outline and detail important villains and heroes from that era, provide a pulp time-line (mixing fact with pulp fancy, with blanks for GM creativity to bend), and have detailed maps that have been appropriately doctored so it fits the era appropriately.

Instead of bland ideas provided in a tool-box fashion, provide complete, elaborate and detailed adventure and campaign settings that can be used as is, or at least provide an example of how it *should* be done (you can never have too many examples). A detailed background setting, such as the “Pulp Apple”, would be a great place for both beginning and established GMs to get started with their band of players. Provide suggestions for alternative ways to game in the pulp era (ie. radio-style, LARPS, Internet) from the standard “sit around the table” for those busy gamers who can’t always get together.

Have an extensive reference section, that not only has those works used, but also includes a summary of the information culled through. Finally, outrageous Pulp art culled from the original magazines, else inspired from the radio and movie serials of the era, is also a must to provide the glamour of the age, and to touch the imagination of the GM and players together.