What traditional pulp adventure RPGs are out there?

[Qualidar]

I just saw a Pulp game at the FLGS called Two Fisted Action.

 

[jdrakeh]

I just saw a Pulp game at the FLGS called Two Fisted Action.

I know about Two-Fisted Tales -- but I've nver heard of Two-Fisted Action. Was this a new game, or a used game?

 

[Qualidar]

It could have been Tales, and not Action, but either way it was on their new-release rack.

 

[jdrakeh]

It could have been Tales, and not Action, but either way it was on their new-release rack.

No need to go out of your way but, if you happen to see it again, could you check on the title for me? If it's a totally unknown Pulp RPG to me, I'd like to err. . . know it.

 

[GMSkarka]

As Walt mentioned, we'll be relaunching THRILLING TALES as a stand-alone game in May, using the Odyssey System (there's a thread here discussing the development of the rules.).

If there are specific things that you're looking for in a stand-alone pulp game, now's your chance to let us know!

 

[Qualidar]

No need to go out of your way but, if you happen to see it again, could you check on the title for me? If it's a totally unknown Pulp RPG to me, I'd like to err. . . know it.

OK, after checking it out again: Two-Fisted Tales (Revised) by P.I.G.

 

[jdrakeh]

OK, after checking it out again: Two-Fisted Tales (Revised) by P.I.G.

Ah. Thanks for the update! I have alaready owned the first edition of this game and, truthfully, wasn't too impressed. It had a bit of a 'cards for the sake bragging rights' thing going on and, in play, it diodn't work out so well (as one might expect). I did just pick up Dime Heroes from Deep7/PIG, though, and that looks like it will play very well to the conventions of Pulp Adventure.

 

[Morte]

B. Must be self-contained in one book or core box set.

If you don't mind drinking two fingers of whiskey and squinting, you might just about squeeze GURPS Cliffhangers plus the free lite rules in under that. After all, if you get the free PDF version of the lite rules, it's only one book. [But I must admit that I don't think the Lite rules work too well unless you either ban rifles or reintroduce the full blowthrough damage rules.]

I played a particularly enjoyable GURPS Cliffhangers game a couple of years back. I was a private eye based out of Berlin in the 20s, originally Swiss, ex French Foreign Legion, ex Mercenary, ex spy for the Bolsheviks during the Russo-Polish war (my big secret), now forced to work for a living again after losing all my wealth in the Great Inflation. I went chasing bandits around secret airfields in North Africa, in a duel of wits with the black sheep second son of an English lord.

What I enjoyed about this campaign was that it was a battle of wits, all about decision making and tactics and deception and covering the angles. I was playing a capable guy, but nothing implausible. I recently bought SOTC and whilst I'm a long term user of FATE and I like the mechanics, I don't like its genre emulation that much because I find it kind of silly. It's full of Gorilla emperors and jetpacks and it can't go two pages without mentioning Atlantis. It's full of "Pulp Science!", i.e. magic.

In the Cliffhangers game, when I needed to put an airfield out of operation I did it by sneaking up to the fuel dump, banging the guard on the head, and setting light to it. When I needed to kill half a dozen armed thugs I did it by silhouetting them against a burning building at dusk, while I sat in the dark three hundred yards away with a scoped rifle.

Of course, you might actually want all the not-quite-fantasy/supers stuff. The Cliffhangers book does cover that too, but I didn't really look at that side so I couldn't say much about it.

 

[pawsplay]

D6 Adventure

And the only thing required to make Adventure! fit the requirements of the OP is just to make everyone play Daredevils.

 

[jdrakeh]

And the only thing required to make Adventure! fit the requirements of the OP is just to make everyone play Daredevils.

Which, of course, requires ignoring a vast swath of the rules and the game's central premise. Don't get me wrong, the "You can take X, ignore a whole bunch of it, and use it to play Y instead!" recommendations do serve a purpose in other threads. In this thread the only purpose that they serve is to annoy. I didn't ask about suggestions for products that I could could hack to create a traditonal Pulp Adventure game. I asked about traditional Pulp Adventure games. There is a difference.

Using Adventure! as you suggest is a bit like investing in a boxed Monopoly game and then only using the dice to play craps, while tossing the rest in the trash. When I want full-blown super heroes cast in a Pulp Adventure setting, I may well pick up Adventure! -- but until I'm looking for that (and that specifically) there isn't a great deal of Adventure! that will be of use to me. If you cut that central premise and the associated powers out of Adventure!, you're left with little more than a serviceable generic system.

While a serviceable generic system may facilitate Pulp Adventure, it won't do so in a very interesting manner, nor is paying for one thing and then gutting it to turn it into something else a very wise way to spend money -- especially when you can simply buy the something else in question off the rack. And, yes, I've both owned and played Adventure! This is an objective critique based on years of experience with the game. It's a great game. It is not, however, what I'm looking for here.