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In 1896, American publisher Frank Munsey decided to change the focus of his Argosy magazine to include fiction only. To cut printing costs, he used pulp paper, roughly the same as what newspapers are printed on. Because of the low price tag, this move to lower-quality stock proved to be a success, but it wasn’t until 1912 – when pulp magazine All Story published two novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Under the Moons of Mars and – of course – Tarzan of the Apes) that the quality of the stories really started to rise. During the Twenties, the popularity of pulp stories really took off, heralding a Golden Age which lasted throughout the Thirties and only really ended in the Fifties, when other forms of cheap entertainment and paper shortages forced publishers to cut down the number of titles.
However, pulp as a genre never really disappeared. From time to time, films and even comics reminded us that there was still an audience for these stories. Sure, The Rocketeer and The Shadow didn’t do as well as expected, but the Indiana Jones series and – more recently – The Librarian (a series of films made for television starring former E.R. cast member Noah Wyle) made clear pulp adventures can still attract millions of fans, and even if the names of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft aren’t branded into our collective memories, most of us know of their work or – in the case of Lovecraft – concepts. Their influence can still be felt, echoing through thousands of publications and mirrored on miles of celluloid. Poirot’s interrogation methods, Tarzan’s screams and Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon have become so well-known that it’s hard to imagine a world without them.
Steven S. Long – one of the most prolific authors in role-playing game history – has repeatedly talked about his affinity and love for the pulp genre. Thus, not surprisingly, he wrote Pulp Hero, a HERO System Fifth Edition supplement discussing how to set adventures and campaigns in the beautifully simple world of pulp. In many ways, Pulp Hero is an update to Justice, Inc., a supplement to a previous incarnation of the HERO System. Still, Pulp Hero covers the subject far more extensively than Justice, Inc. ever did, as evidenced by its 432 pages (the original game consisted of a 96 page main book and an 80 page campaign book).
Thankfully, the first 222 pages of this book are dedicated to familiarize Gamemasters and players with the genre. Not a single rule is mentioned here, making Pulp Hero an interesting buy not only to HERO players, but to anyone interested in the time period or the genre itself.
After an introduction and a short pulp story history, Steven Long correctly points out several conventions inherent in the genre: a focus on action, shallow, clichéd and poorly developed characters (there’s so much going on that there’s not much time to waste on introspection), melodrama and a black and white moral tone. He then goes on to describe other typical pulp elements, such as the abduction of a lovely young woman, Chinatown, cliffhangers, deathtraps, disguises, the Great War, incompetent cops, sidekicks, weird science and much more. Open-minded gamers will probably breathe easier when they find out subjects like racism and sexism – prevalent themes in pulp stories – have not been ignored. Long suggests either avoiding these subjects, embracing them (making most player characters white men), or trying to go for a ‘middle approach’. He doesn’t push the reader to be politically correct, while still showing great respect for people who are easily offended by sexism or racism, even though this is all just a game and cultural or sexual thinking was very different eighty years ago.
Before reading the chapter on subgenres, this reviewer tried to come up with a list of possible entries, and to the author’s credit, most of them are mentioned: air adventure, crimebusting, detective, globetrotting, weird menace, historical, love and romance and spicy. Very specialised subgenres (sea stories, railroad stories, sports pulps etc) are only touched on very, very briefly, but this doesn’t feel like a major omission. Steven also identifies several meta-genres, such as comedy, horror, mystery, romance, and tragedy. He doesn’t forget to discuss adopting other Hero books (Champions, Dark Champions, Fantasy Hero, Ninja Hero and Star Hero, as well as Victorian Hero and Western Hero) to the pulp genre. The distinction between subgenres and metagenres seems to be fairly arbitral, even though it isn’t difficult to follow the author’s way of thinking. Possibly all of the genres could have been mentioned back-to-back, but the choice not to do so doesn’t really interfere with readability.
A major and extremely helpful timeline is included, covering page 34 up to 121. It starts in January 1920 and presents major events in the fields of politics & war, science & technology, crime & punishment, arts & entertainment and life & times up to December 1939, broken down per month. This listing is fairly impressive and should be a great resource for not only Pulp Hero roleplayers, but – amongst many others – Call of Cthulhu players as well. This timeline is followed by 16 pages presenting famous people, starting with Mustapha Kemal Ataturk in the Politics & War section and ending with Billy Sunday in the Miscellaneous section. It is unclear why Steven doesn’t use the same ‘life & times’ title as he uses in the timeline, but for the most part, the categories of famous people correspond to the timeline entries.
The next chapter – The World of the Pulp Era – covers no less than 82 pages. In it, Steven covers the League of Nations (suggesting that, in a Pulp Hero campaign, it might have agents or operatives), the Depression, colonialism, travel and transportation and communications, including superb maps and tables listing major colonies, ship fares, train fares, international and national air travel distances and international water travel distances before going on to list ALL of the earth’s continents. Most of the major countries get an entry, but this is not what makes this chapter special. With the proper amount of research, players and Gamemasters should be able to find out most of this for themselves. However, Steven also includes short essays on the Ku Klux Klan, the Empire Club, the 1939 World Fair, Devil’s Island, the Comintern, the Hashishim and much more. In the sidebars, subjects such as Murder, Inc., Hollywoodland, Rexism, Gestapo organization, Anastasia and Sikh policemen are covered. Even though this only represents a tiny amount of information, it adds a tremendous amount of flavour to a supplement that is all about flavour. All in all, having this amount of research at your fingertips instead of having to flip through dozens of history books is a great help, making this chapter almost indispensable.
HERO System is known for its crunch, and we get a lot of that from page 224 onwards. Package Deals present a great way for players to start creating characters on the fly, covering athletes, aviators, cops, cowboys, detectives, amateur detectives, magician-detectives, medical detectives, occult detectives, psychic detectives, dilettantes, diplomats, explorers, archaeologists, gadgeteers, gangsters, grease monkeys, Great White Hunters, jazz musicians, masked crimefighters, professors, reporters, sailors, scientists, soldiers, spies, thrillseeking criminals, two-fisted heroes and wild men. The Characteristics, Skills, Perks, Talents, Disadvantages and Advantages each Package Deal tells you to buy are well thought of, making these deals the equivalent of the classes used in many other games while keeping the adaptability and limitless options inherent in the core game system. Even if using a different rules set, these Package Deals should still serve as good suggestions on what skills and abilities one might want to purchase.
In addition the Professional Package Deals, players are also allowed to purchase Background Package Deals, including circus folk, scientific parent, Great War, wealthy upbringing, missionary’s child, newsboy and travelin’ child.
Pulp Hero, like all HERO System genre supplements; includes a section on the implications certain Characteristics, Skills, Perks, Talents, Advantages and Disadvantages have on the genre. This section is surprisingly short, giving way to a subchapter on Heroic Talents after only 12 pages, again illustrating how generic the HERO System truly is. To further stress the point, the Heroic Talents use the HERO System Powers and other concepts to create pulp-specific ‘talents’, such as Bite Through Nails, Disquieting Aura, Door-Smashing Fists, Eerie Laugh, It Doesn’t Hurt That Much, It Looks Worse Than It Is, Tightened Muscles, Unimpressed, Odor Identification, Cloud Men’s Minds, Revealing Conversation, I Can Handle Any Plane You Got, Never Look Mussed and Working the Pedals – 84 Heroic Talents in all, but who’s counting? Of course, the nature of the rules system makes sure any other Heroic Talent can be dreamt up, but it’s always fun and easy to have a number of fully designed abilities available.
Of course, that is not all. We get a whole chapter on pulp technology. However, Steven doesn’t only focus on weird science, he also includes an extensive table covering technology availability (also listing unavailable devices). On top of that, we get weapons and vehicles. The author discusses the different types of weird tech and how to use weird science in the game before going on to crunchy descriptions of potential fan favourites such as the death ray, button grenades, hypodermic finger-caps, bulletproof undershirts, concealable parachutes, rocket packs and mindreading machines. Apart from the standard set of statistics, several options are given for each and every one of these and other devices, just like we have grown accustomed to. Anyone who can’t see how well HERO System Fifth Edition has been treating the fans lately must be blind, as the writers are including so many examples and options that it isn’t even necessary to construct everything using the basic rules set. Instead, gamemasters or players who don’t have enough time on their hands can simply use these descriptions, while others can use them as templates or sources of inspiration.
The following price lists include typical wages for dozens of occupations, different types of film rolls, ocean liner fares by class and room and a table to convert currencies.
We then find a section on pulp feel that could have just as easily been included earlier in the book. It discusses the ‘peculiarities of pulpishness’ in some detail, providing excellent insight into the genre and proving again that Steven S. Long is intimately familiar with it. Excellent advice on covering the feel of the time is given, after which a chapter on GMing pulp campaigns starts. Now, RPG’s include so much advice for Gamemasters that it’s hard to imagine authors coming up with anything new, but still, these pages help to provide Gamemasters with tons of ideas on how to run campaigns, structure adventures and decide on the right kind of content.
The section on environmental threats includes nasty diseases such as cholera and leprosy, a few ground threats, traps and several pages on an old fan favourite: the rope bridge!
It’s on to villains next and after a lengthy discussion on suitable adversaries, we are presented with Randall’s Raiders: five fully fleshed-out characters Gamemasters can use as Non-Player Characters or as pre-generated Characters for their players. Amongst the villains, we find hero nemesis SS-Oberführer Hermann Eichenwald, mob boss Vinnie “The Axe” Coletti, obsessed scientist Dr. Jennings Petrie and the Rajah of Rashmunistan, Akash Varmandali, as well as generic cops, cultists and more.
To wrap things up, we are presented with ten full pages of pulp slang, a list of notable authors and a bibliography. The excellent index covers seven pages.
Pulp Hero is, quite simply, an excellent supplement. Virtually anything one can think of is covered and the artwork is – again – of superior quality. The move to standardised black covers and logos was very wise and the front cover, full colour illustration of a man pointing a revolver at a girl hanging onto a helicopter who seems to have stolen his parchment roll fits the subject matter perfectly. Chapters are introduced by full-page black and white art, each piece presenting the cover of a pulp magazine or book. As usual, all of the NPC’s are illustrated. The maps are beautiful and the layout we’ve gotten familiar with is still there, serving its purpose extremely well. This is a must have for any fan of the genre or the period, a thoroughly enjoyable and complete supplement that never ever misses the mark. Highly recommended.
Dirk Vandereyken
