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Pulp adventure gains an ally in the massive tome, Pulp Hero, written by Steven Long for the Hero game system. As this book spans over four hundred pages, this will not be an in-depth review. If you’re a fan of the Pulp genre, the two-fisted action hero such as the Spider or the Shadow, this book if for you regardless of what game system you enjoy.
The book is a massive tome at 432 pages and well worth the price of admission. The cover art isn’t my favorite, and I’ve heard several complaints on the RPG.net message boards about it as well. The interior art has it’s share of ups and downs. My favorite bits are the illustrations that look to be from old pulp magazines of the 20’s and 30’s like The Phantom Detective on page 223. Good stuff.
Lay out is three columns with two columns being used for the main body of the text and the third used for extra information that’s related to the main text. For example, under trains on page 146, we also have information on the Orient Express in the third column. Other information is pulled out and in grayed boxes. For example, the train pages also note ship fares and train fares of the times. For those demanding gamers, there is a multi-page index that helps out the multi-page table of contents. Between the two, you should be able to find what you’re looking for relatively soon. Not quickly as it’s a 400+ page book, but relatively soon.
Hunting down information on what the Pulp Genre is? Chapter one does an excellent job of covering the various bases of what helps make a good pulp story, even though those elements might look silly, or worse, out of place to the more open minded readers of today. For example, racism was pretty common and accepted back then with certain ethnicities falling into ‘evil’ roles time and time again. Women were often not the main heroes of the tales and were often walk on pieces to get the heroes involved by killing them off.
The nice thing about this section though, is that it briefly mentions how other elements and genres, like horror, can be mixed within the Hero system. For example, if you’re like me and gave up hope of the Pulp Cthulhu promised in 2002, you’ll find some small pearls of wisdom here. One of the things it made me think of, were elements of Pulp Hero with Dark Champions. Some potential similarities but a much more action oriented way of looking at things in Pulp Hero.
If you’re looking for historical information from 1920 to 1939, the book has you covered with a cross section of various tidbits of historical lore broken into different sections like politics and war in one section and arts and entertainment in another. The timeline is broken down by month and year with dates given more information. Almost like a huge Excel file. Not too exciting to look at but it’s there if you need it. For those looking for a human face for these times, the section on famous people includes names, birthdates and quick bios of the people of the times. For example, Calvin Coolidge was Harding’s Vice President in 1920 and become the thirtieth President when Harding died in 1923.
In addition to the timeline and the rundown of the popular people, it also details the world of that era. We have a section for the United State, the Americas (Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean), Europe, Africa, the Near East, South Asia, the Far East, and Oceania. In terms of describing these lands, one of the best things it does is continuously remind the GM that the point of Pulp Hero is to tell action stores. One example from Oceania, “While in real life the more extreme practices were probably rare by the Pulp era, the GM shouldn’t let reality dissuade him if he’s got an idea for an exciting South Seas adventure that requires cannibalistic tribesmen!”
Some products get so tied up in the NOW that they forget the purpose of the GAME set in the THEN times as we saw them THEN as opposed to now. Taking the NOW and putting it into the game results into a much different THEN that may not be as enjoyable to play.
When we roll to chapter four, we’ve had a lot of fluff, advice, history lessons, and all sorts of other good thing to set the pace. In Chapter four however, we start with the characters. The first part talks briefly about some of the common elements that Pulp Heroes tend to have. For example, they’re generally physically and mentally superior to normal people. They only kill in self-defense, and never woman. They have the latest technology and sometimes, even technology that’s too good to be real. It’s a nice little list before getting to the package deals.
The package deals start with the name, how the package deal fits into the Pulp era and include details on the goals, motivations, abilities, suggested disadvantages and progression. Many include options that can be added. For example, the cowboy might want to take bar-room brawler and buy +2d6 hand attack but have the psychological limitation laconic “Don’t Talk Much, Do He?”. Some of these are easy to spot like the athletic package deal. The point totals are generally low, more of them below fifty including disadvantages.
The one I’m most interested in, due to my old reading of Doc Savage and other characters though, would be the Masked Crimefighter. It’s a 100 point package with a 50 point disadvantage package. Here the game is going to either have to have a fairly high starting point of the player is going to have to sell back some of his abilities.
One of the things I like about the package deals, is that they’re almost like a class in a class and level based system. They take some of the starting paper work out of making a new character and help you get into the game. They’re great for players who are new to the system and don’t know how the idea they’d like to represent would be done up in play terms.
If you’re not interested in those deals, or if you’re just curious as to how the Hero system models the genre, the rest of the chapter helps out there. This includes advice on ability scores, how the skills work in this era, appropriate talents, and disadvantages, broken up by category. For example, under social limitations, the disadvantage Woman is a reflection of the “second-class status”.
Of special note is the section on Heroic Talents. These powers have the name, say, Choking Graps, the effect, target, duration, range, end cost, and skill roll penalty, folloed by description, game information, and options. That choking grasp for example is an energy blast that does 3d6 NND with a range of Touch costing 4 end with a –4 skill roll penalty that won’t work against those with rigid armor on the neck or other things like self-contained breathing.
Once you’ve developed your character, he’s going to need equipment. Well, the GM’s going to need to know what’s around anyway. The book breaks up the standards into common, recent, rare, and unavailable. For example, there are no credit cards or CDs in that era, but thankfully, real utility items like toilet paper are found. I mean, didn’t anyone ever wonder what Indy did in those desperate times in the jungle?
Most players will immediately flip to the section on weapons. We have stuff like revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. It includes a breakdown by name, caliber, OCV, range modifier, damage, stun modifier, shots, strength minimum, per modifier, active point/real point cost, mass, origin, year, and notes. For example, the Webley No. 1 Mk VI has a +1 OCV, does 2d6-1, regular stun modifier, 6 shots, and costs 37/10 A/R. It comes from Britain in the year 1915.
Not everything can be explained through the old standards though. Some stuff relies instead on the realm of Weird Science. It’s a useful section for a few pieces of advice. For example, taking science fiction technology from Star Hero and making it fit the Pulp era with crazy explanations, “By pushing against the Aether, the Impleler allows us to defy gravity!” and “have it contribute to the story you’re tying to tell…” Important pieces of advice to keep the game, especially one with rules for almost everything like Hero, moving. When you start getting bogged down in the intricacies of the thingamabob, then it’s time to take a step back.
For those lazy people like me, they’ve included a list of sample weird tech. These write ups are similar to the powers described before and include game effects, options, and other details to get them into the game. Want a death ray or a engine stopping ray? They’re in here. Want a rocket pack or a mindreadng machine? You’re covered.
The chapter closes off with prices. It includes some annual wages for various occupations as well as a currency converter. Handy but if I’m asking the characters to make change for some funds, then I’ve probably gone off the path I was interested in the first place.
Chapter six is a big hug for the game master. While you’ve got a lot of the tools to construct a pulp campaign in the early chapters, like the timeline and the genre type, how do you take those elements and make a game of them? This chapter hits on some of those points again from the angle of running the game, bringing what Pulp is to the GM to keep the game moving. Making sure that you don’t punish players for being active. Not allowing them to be stupid, but not giving them the full realism treatment. Not punishing them for not having a valid knowledge of the timeline, since their characters would actually have that knowledge. Good stuff overall.
And if you’re lazy like me, just grab some dice and hit the random plot generator. Let’s see….a client asks the party to defeat an enemy but a society is protecting him and a third party villain is hunting the party that hired the group in the first place. Yeah, that’s the ticket…
Another element that bears careful reading and though, is the use of heroic action points. In a genre like this, where the action is supposed to be thick and heavy, there are a lot of killing attacks whipping around. Character death, even when appropriate according to the dice, may not fit with the mood of Pulp action.
Steve Long mentions that these are similar to the option rules for Luck on page 199 of the 5th edition revised book and have a few ways that they can be introduced including rolling his luck dice at the start of the game and counting the total. That represents the number of individual dice the player may re-roll during the game to get a better result. For heroic games, that sounds like a valid option. My only concern would be that they’d become a crunch, much as Action Points in higher level D&D can be. Now the players can be doing things not because they should be able to normally, but because the luck points make them possible. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but something that can change the tone of the game the GM is trying to run if not actively taken into account at the beginning of his campaign formulation.
Chapter seven introduces us to Randall’s Raiders, a group of heroes pregenerated. They act as a solid example of some of the characters that the players may make. Each starts off with name, full game stats, background/history, personality/motivation, quote, powers/tactics, campaign use, and appearance. Each has suggested equipment, and for those who want to customize them, the section on campaign use gives ideas on how to modify them for different situations. For example, Lili might need some extra DC for her Kung Fu style to make her tougher while Liz could use some more STR and DEX.
Not satisfied to end with a group of heroes, we also get some villains like Herman Eichenwalk, “the classic types of Nazi Villains”, as well as generic adversaries like average cop, cultists and soldier.
The book ends with more useful goodies. For example, pages of pulp slang, lists of pulp anthologies, and books about the pulps, a multi-page biography including films, websites, books, and other role playing games.
Overall, Pulp Hero impresses with its size which allows it to present a lot of detail that’s just missing in other books. Now not everyone is going to need all that detail, but it certainly is handy having it all in one spot. It doesn’t force a certain bogus world on the reader to explain super science events as much as say, “Here’s the World as we thought it was. Go wild.” This allows the GM to make the world into one fit for Tarzan and Doc Savage to meet up with the Shadow on their way to Mars for some outer world adventure.
Art quality could be way up. The book is also so big that it might intimidate some readers. The depth of the historical information in terms of events on the timeline and famous people, could’ve almost been a book in and of itself, especially if you threw the world parts in there.
Having said that, the book was fairly easy to read. It also doesn’t have to be read in one sitting. I don’t know too many people who are going to want to read through twenty pages of tabulated dates just for the pleasure of reading them. They’re good for setting up your games, for knowing what’s going around. A bit dry for everyday reading without doing more research on the events themselves.
If you’re a player of any Pulp game, or for that matter any game in the 1920s or 30s, this is a great resource. If you’re a Hero fan who wants to see Steve Long’s take on the genre, this book is a good glimpse into a time of two-fisted action.
