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<blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1642398" data-attributes="member: 10201">Well, the problem is that &quot;pulp&quot; isn't, properly, a genre--it's a medium. Trying to make accurate generalizations about pulp stories is like saying &quot;animation is for children&quot;--it's, at best, true of a subset.Now, when most people say &quot;pulp&quot; these days, they mean the adventure pulps: precursors to supers, and, IMHO, inheritors of the Victorian adventure story (Verne, et.al.)--Doc Savage, Tarzan, Lone Ranger, The Shadow, The Spider, The Avenger, The Phantom, etc. But pulps were either the birth or flowering of supernatural horror, modern detective fiction, and sword-n-sorcery, among other genres. And, as an example of where this matters, detective pulps decidedly did not subscribe to the B&amp;W morality of the adventure pulps, and instead are the precursors of the morally-ambiguous film noir genre.That said, prior to this thread, i'd never heard &quot;pulp&quot; used to refer to hardboiled detective stories, or anything of the sort. Yes, properly it does--but in the proper sense, it isn't a genre, and tells you nothing about the content, instead describing only the medium. I've always heard &quot;pulp&quot; used either to describe the medium, in a historical sense, or to refer specifically to the adventure pulps, in a genre sense.As for what Eberron is or isn't: dunno. Haven't read it. The &quot;distancing&quot; of the gods, thus allowing out-of-alignment clerics to still have spells, etc., might be a step in the direction of the moral ambiguity of noir. The action points certainly seem to be more pulp-ish, if anything. But other than that, it seems like there's not much of either genre beyond someone saying those genres are incorporated. And, IMHO, to really reflect the moral ambiguity of noir, you'd have to ditch alignment, or at least eliminate all techniques for characters to detect it. So long as the characters and players can unambiguously say &quot;this guy is Good; that one is Bad&quot;, i don't think you can accurately capture the noir feel.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="woodelf, post: 1642398, member: 10201"] Well, the problem is that "pulp" isn't, properly, a genre--it's a medium. Trying to make accurate generalizations about pulp stories is like saying "animation is for children"--it's, at best, true of a subset. Now, when most people say "pulp" these days, they mean the adventure pulps: precursors to supers, and, IMHO, inheritors of the Victorian adventure story (Verne, et.al.)--Doc Savage, Tarzan, Lone Ranger, The Shadow, The Spider, The Avenger, The Phantom, etc. But pulps were either the birth or flowering of supernatural horror, modern detective fiction, and sword-n-sorcery, among other genres. And, as an example of where this matters, detective pulps decidedly did not subscribe to the B&W morality of the adventure pulps, and instead are the precursors of the morally-ambiguous film noir genre. That said, prior to this thread, i'd never heard "pulp" used to refer to hardboiled detective stories, or anything of the sort. Yes, properly it does--but in the proper sense, it isn't a genre, and tells you nothing about the content, instead describing only the medium. I've always heard "pulp" used either to describe the medium, in a historical sense, or to refer specifically to the adventure pulps, in a genre sense. As for what Eberron is or isn't: dunno. Haven't read it. The "distancing" of the gods, thus allowing out-of-alignment clerics to still have spells, etc., might be a step in the direction of the moral ambiguity of noir. The action points certainly seem to be more pulp-ish, if anything. But other than that, it seems like there's not much of either genre beyond someone saying those genres are incorporated. And, IMHO, to really reflect the moral ambiguity of noir, you'd have to ditch alignment, or at least eliminate all techniques for characters to detect it. So long as the characters and players can unambiguously say "this guy is Good; that one is Bad", i don't think you can accurately capture the noir feel. [/QUOTE]

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