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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Byrons_Ghost" data-source="post: 2931502" data-attributes="member: 7396">I think it all comes down to this:With the popularity of Raiders of the Lost Ark (and their spin-offs) in the eighties, there was a demands for RPGs to do something similar, since RPGs pretty much follow pop cultural trends. So you had games coming out like Indiana Jones, Justice Inc, Cliffhangers, and the like. These games focused on a specific aspect of pulp fiction- mostly globe-trotting adventures with a mix of super-science and the supernatural (in varying degrees). These games got the pulp designation, because that was the closest they had to a category, and now we're stuck with it, in the RPG business at least. So, when pulp is used by Eberron to refer to these sorts of things, what's why the term is being used more specifically than it probably ought to.It's true that, in general, pulp simply refers to any cheaply produced magazine made between the wars (and not always fiction, either). Within genres, such as fantasy or sci-fi, pulp tends to refer to those types of stories that were published during the pulp period, such as by Clark Ashton Smith or Edgar Rice Burroughs. Outside of those genres (probably as far as the "maintream literatti" are concerned), pulp fiction is generally considered to be hardboiled detective fiction. For instance, I have a few "Pulp fiction" collections, and they're all of the hardboiled variety. Whereas collections of pulp fantasy or sci-fi are generally labelled by the fantasy/sci-fi category, making the pulp variant a subcategory.My guess for this generalization is that hardboiled was created, and a unique product of, the pulp era, whereas sci-fi and fantasy already existed in varying forms. True, the pulps brought new elements to the genres, but history doesn't seem to remember those so much. Given that literary trends of the day tended toward modernism and realism, it's also natural that those pulps which gained the attention of the literati would get stuck with the generic term.As has been mentioned, there's no single element of Eberron that's new- dark urban fantasy, eldritch machines, airships, and exotic explorations have all be done before. The mixing and focus, however, the presentation, I think is new. Saying otherwise would be like saying that Charles Mingus didn't do anything new because he was simply mixing Ellington and Stravinsky. The mix was new, and uniquely his own, and that's what made him stand out from all the other Ellington imitators.</blockquote>

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