Pulp Noir

[Damonoir]

Being that Eberron has disappointed in the Noir-esc adventures setting when it comes to how the adventures are written (meaning its in a dingy city but the stories are VERY typically D&D). So I am writing a world that is a Pulp Noir world and I am going to use the D20 Modern rules.
I may make an amalgam of modern and past. But I am looking to see if anyone has any written adventures for a Noir type setting.
I bought the Mutants & Masterminds Noir supplemental book for ideas and some of them are just great. Of course there are no published adventures for these type of settings.
Let me know if anyone has any adventures for me to read or run.
Thanks

 

[Crothian]

Well, considering the Pulp and Noir really don't have a lot in common, it does not suprise me that Eberron setting fails to do Noir. For Noir I actually goto the game Noir. But I can't say I recall ever seeing an adventure that was Noir based for pretty much anything.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Out of curiosity, what do you feel that the published stuff is missing? If you can think of a few key points, you might have more luck coming up with the stuff that you want to do.

Also, WotC has a whole forum for Eberron, you might want to check those pages out for some ideas.

 

[Damonoir]

Well Eberron is lacking in the true Noir storylines. My problem with Eberron is that the written adventures are so very typical of regular D&D and have so little Noir qualities (the first mod takes place in the wilderness!). Just because the setting is a big, gritty city doesnt mean the story arcs are Noir in any way. They are all very common to regular D&D and typical and its sad because they kept pushing this neo noir aspect to it (Blade Runner was used as one example in early write ups) which it never yet has lived up to.
Noir is about intrigue, dark story lines, hardboiled characters, femme fatales and alot of knotted mysteries. Eberron boards don't and won't help because the published works arent truly noir in any way.

Some Pulp stories do make crossovers into Noir and the characters can be similar. But I was hoping there might be a place online to find those types of adventures or if someone had there own adventures written I would pick their brain a bit.

 

[Crothian]

People play up the Pulp of Eberron and it is described as a Pulp setting not a Noir setting. For Noir adventures I'd sugest writing your own. There really none published.

 

[Damonoir]

I am just going by MANY using the pulp/noir setting description articles and what Keith Baker says;:

What was the main inspiration for Eberron? Keith said, “I’d been spending lots of time watching pulp/noir. When the setting search came along I submitted seven ideas. What became Eberron was one I did just by having fun writing it. I was just trying to toss in all the interesting things in D&D that don’t make sense.”

Thats all dude. He was inspired by both genres and decided to marry them to an extent. Yes, though I will probably have to go and write my own adventures. Thank you.

 

[Hemlock Stones]

Pulp Noir And What It Needs

GREETINGS!

It seems to me that Pulp Noir as an environment concept should be much more popular than it is. Sin City might really light a fire in some of the people out there when they see the dynamics of it on the big screen. What I have observed in the darker games I have played, Vampire the Masquerade in particular, you have to have people willing to play dark characters. On top of that, the DM has to create an intense environment for them to play in. Doing that can be difficult.

What I did was to create a city in a pocket world linked to the city of Detroit. I was inspired in part by the David Bowie song Diamond Dogs. One of the groups in conflict within the city called Malice was the Diamond Dogs, a werewolf biker gang. I had a demonic Jimmy Hoffa running the city. The people that played the game enjoyed it because of how different and raw it was opposed to the more typical occult World of Darkness setting.

Hollywood has always painted Noir as direct and more of a condensed intense reality opposed to the rest of the world. Not everybody can easily adapt to playing a "black and white" character. Gaming systems like D&D have nine alignments with most of them not really being suitable for the "black and white" realities of a Noir type role playing game.

Think about the Shadow as a character. Most people have no idea how evil Lamont Cranston was before he had spiritual enlightenment. People playing a character like that have to really work to bring those necessary qualities out in a character like that. Think of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Much of what Ford did with the character had to do with a singlemindness towards certain values. Doing that outside of the Pulp environs and within Noir tends to isolate the character. From what I saw in Sin City was the main character gets framed. He then reaches out and brings in people to help him out that more or less owe him favors. Granted he helped all of them out in the past with tough situations. But none of them would have gone out of there way to help out if it weren't for the fact that they owed him.

One of the things that has a great appeal for a Pulp Noir world is that you bring in supernatural elements that are subtle yet the real impetus for what's going on. A good example of this is how in your typical B&W Serial B-movies was that a criminal gang is doing all the dirty work for a mysterious head boss. Later its discovered the boss is a Martian or a Nazi. It might be a cliche' to do that, but it's Pulp wholesomeness at it's finest. Suppose all the minor crimes the "dark heroes" are running across are being done by your typical criminal gang. The deeper they try to find the mysterious "Boss" the more confused it gets. It's linked to the "Church". The "archbishop" is the culprit. It's all been a war of Good vs. Evil that the "dark heroes" get tangled in the middle of.

That's my two cents on it all.

Alan

 

[trancejeremy]

You might try the "Bloodshadows" setting from WEG.

It was originally meant to be noir-ish, but apparently like Mr. Baker, the later authors had no idea what "noir" meant, and it got pulpish in later supplements....

(For anyone who wants to know what noir really is, go read something by Cornell Woolrich)

 

[JPL]

It was originally meant to be noir-ish, but apparently like Mr. Baker, the later authors had no idea what "noir" meant, and it got pulpish in later supplements....

I have seen no evidence that Keith Baker lacks an understanding of noir. The moral ambiguity of Eberron, in particular, is noirish --- and certainly not characteristic of baseline D&D or "pulp" [in the Indiana Jones / high adventure sense of the term].

Noir
1. Of or relating to the film noir genre.
2. Of or relating to a genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings.
3. Suggestive of danger or violence.

Keith's first Eberron novel:

"Hardened by the Last War, four soldiers have come to Sharn, fabled City of Towers, capital of adventure, home to the best and worst that Eberron has to offer. After a lifetime of fighting, war is all they know. Now, in a time of uneasy peace, they must struggle to survive.

And then people start turning up dead.

Now the heroes find themselves in an adventure that will take them from the highest reaches of power to the most sordid depths of the city of wonder, shadow, and adventure."

Keith in an online chat about the novel:

"Daine is a sort of classic noir hero, in that he's an idealistic person who's lost everything -- he's a good person, but life has made him bitter."

Keith on Eberron:

"Or, if you're more interested in the noir end of things, fight greed and corruption in the darkest alleys of Sharn!"

From the Ask Keith Baker FAQ:

"Eberron is a world where we want people to strive to stay alive. Part of the noir tradition is that bad things can happen to good people, and the worst of these is death..."

Sounds noir to me.

I am compelled to defend Keith Baker at all times because it makes me feel better about my burning jealousy.

 

[ragboy]

Keith's first Eberron novel:

I agree that his novel had more of a noir-driven plot, but the actual published adventures haven't proven to be, at least not with some retrofit. Noir is as much about the characters as the setting, though, so maybe you just have to get the right character and NPC mix to have a true noir adventure. Patrons that end up acting on their own goals (contrary to the characters -- thus a bit of backstabbing), everyone has a 'past' and none of it is nice, the characters fight and fight to maintain their own (and their world's) status quo. These are the overreaching themes and trinkets of noir.

I am compelled to defend Keith Baker at all times because it makes me feel better about my burning jealousy.

That was darn funny.