Pulp RPGs, What is Everyone Playing?

[SAVeira]

A couple of years ago I was talking to a group of RPG developers and we got on the topic of pulp games, one of the developers quipped that every game developer has dreams of making a pulp game but that they generally fail to sell.

Now I have a really large collection of pulp RPGs but never played any. It has been easier to find people interested in either playing fantasy, horror or superhero RPG.

Wondering how many people do pulp games (excluding Call of Cthulhu as that is more horror even when Pulp)? Then those that do, what games system are you using?

 

[Voadam]

I consider D&D as pulp in the Conan sense once you get enough hp to survive a few hits and be an action hero and seek out fights instead of skulking and actively avoiding them.

I have done D&D with a tone of Army of Darkness and Indiana Jones in a fantasy world and had it go well. It is my current target tone for the last couple of campaigns I have run, with minor horror elements.

I have not done a game specifically set in straight pulp only aesthetics.

 

[Umbran]

Wondering how many people do pulp games (excluding Call of Cthulhu as that is more horror even when Pulp)? Then those that do, what games system are you using?

My pulpy goodness usually comes in some Fate variant - much of it Fate Accelerated.

 

[overgeeked]

The top two are usually Savage Worlds snd Fate. I wish I liked Savage Worlds more as it’s far more popular than Fate.

Here’s a related thread.

Thread 'Pulp RPGs General Thread [+]'

Oct 28, 2025

The [+] is to keep things positive and prevent the same old, tired arguments about the style of play, genre, and time period. There are plenty of other threads to hate on games and play styles you don’t like.

One of my all-time favorite genres is pulp adventure. Instead of doing a thread about a specific game, I thought we could use a thread about the genre. So here goes.

This thread takes a broad approach to pulp. If it might be pulp, it's close enough.

I cannot recommend Pulp Hero enough. Even if you never use the mechanics, it's the single best gaming source for...

• overgeeked
• Replies: 36
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

• 

 

[kronovan]

As I said in the thread that overgeeked linked, SWADE is my primary go to. I've acquired a number of 3rd party pulp companions (Thrilling Tales, Daring Tales of Adventures/Space, The Great Book of Random Tables), for SWADE, which have proven to be quality stuff. I've also run a few pulp adventures with FATE Cote and got good results. Recently I purchased Astounding Tales for Basic Roleplaying, so I'm considering using it for my next pulp adventure.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

A couple of years ago I was talking to a group of RPG developers and we got on the topic of pulp games, one of the developers quipped that every game developer has dreams of making a pulp game but that they generally fail to sell.

Wondering how many people do pulp games (excluding Call of Cthulhu as that is more horror even when Pulp)? Then those that do, what games system are you using?

Recently played a 4-session Outgunned campaign, but still feel that Fate works better when I need to run pulp. I'm not a big fan of Savage Worlds, finding it a bit clunky, but I ran a long SW campaign using the Flash Gordon materials, and that worked very well.

 

[dbm]

Savage Worlds has pulp action at its core, and it is one of the few games I have personally found that delivers on that premise. It’s my favourite genre-flexible system because pretty much all the games I want to run are some type of pulp - pulp sci-fi, pulp horror, pulp fantasy and so on. It’s an extremely well supported system, too, with many high quality first- and third-party supplements.