Two Fisted Tales is a brave, brawling roundhouse of a game, taking a shot at the oft attempted but rarely successful Pulp RPG genre. More generic than Adventure! and more fleshed out than Dime Heroes, it does a good job of finding a comfortable niche in an uncomfortable niche market.
Two Fisted Tales is a .pdf available from
While I heartily applaud Spectre Press for including multiple files in their download, I wasn’t always impressed with their formatting or choice of file type. The truth is that the 126 page “print” .pdf was easier to read on screen than the screen .pdf was, making the second nearly useless. The character sheet was good, but I would have liked the tables in a .txt format as well, and the cover as any graphics file format (.jpg, .gif, .tiff) rather than a .pdf.
The print version of the book was nicely laid out, and looked good both on screen and when printed out on my laser printer. The art is quite nice, despite the fact that I don’t think the Christopher Shy cover fits the tone of the book, and most of it conveys the pulp feeling well enough to suit its purposes. The layout was simple and clean, but had a bit of an issue with the columns that made my eyes have trouble following the text easily – a combination of too wide columns and too narrow gutters, I think.
The book is also avaliable as a 120 page printed paperback for $16. (http://www.spectrepress.com/2ft.php)
In Two Fisted Tales characters are generated by modifying a template to fit your vision of your ultimate pulp hero. While I’m not a huge fan of template systems generally, the templates in Two Fisted Tales are wide enough and numerous enough to cover most of the heroes you’ll find in the pulps. Plus they are modifiable, more so than games like Feng Shui, which gives some recompense for the inability to scratch-build a character.
Characters are defined by 8 primary ability scores, each ranked from 1 to 20 (1 being moron, 20 being god among men), two derived ability scores, specialties for each ability, and possibly masteries for each specialty. Specialties replace skills in most other games, being an area of skill, focus, or general aptitude in which the character excels their normal stat. They work by adding 4 to the ability in any fitting situation. Masteries are a sub-specialization in a specialty, which add 4 more to the ability in any fitting situation. So someone with Brains 12, Specialty Scholarship, Mastery Archeology has a score of 20 for any Archeology check. Characters can also buy schticks: special abilities such as mesmerism that put them above the human norm. There are some 15 pages of schticks which range from animal control to hypnotism to creating weird science gadgets. Finally there are defects, which give them a few bonus points (not generally enough to make it worth trying to min-max) to buy other abilities with.
The experience system is one of the better aspects of the character system, as it is built to model the pulps and the way characters grow in their pages as well as to encourage good RP. Characters gain Hero Points, which can either be used to improve abilities out of game or to suddenly gain new powers in game if they fit the story (“Of course I know how to row a canoe, I spent two summers living with the Iroquois during my childhood!”). Characters gain Hero Points by using their four “bonus” areas: Cool Idea, Experience, Roleplay, and Virtue. Each of these lets the PC gain points by rolling a 10 sided dice against their current score at the end of any game where they have demonstrated the fitting focus – such as playing by the character’s code of conduct for Virtue, or being very clever for Cool Idea. This encourages players to learn, be clever, and play their character according to pulp values in order to get all the Hero Points they can.
Two Fisted Tales’ system is divided between a simple system and an advanced system. The simple system introduces the game and gives basic resolution that is fitting for a lot of non-dramatic but still chancy situations, and then the advanced system adds widgets to make specific actions more tactical, exciting, or supported by the rules. Being a rule’s light sort of person, I used the simple system for most of my playtest game, and it worked quite well. The advanced system is a bit more complex, and may take a few sessions to get used to, but is still easy and quick enough to make for a fun game.
The basics of the system are based on rolling two ten sided dice, a bonus dice and a penalty dice. Both dice explode (if you roll a 9 you roll again and add that number), and when all rerolls are done the penalty dice is subtracted from the bonus dice and the result is added to the character’s ability to determine the final result. If the result beats the target number the action succeeds, if not, it fails. (For those familiar with Feng Shui the dice rolling is very similar, save with 10s rather than 6s.)
Two things give the system, even at its basic level, some flex. If a character has an ability score greater than the target number and is under no dramatic pressure then they can automatically succeed. This lets GMs put the level of rolling in the game at the level they want it at, and lets really bad-ass characters be really bad-ass. The other issue is card play. Characters with a high luck score get to draw cards from a poker deck at the start of play, the number determined by their luck. Before the dice are rolled these cards can be played to add to the result of the action. Normal cards add their value (but only one can be played), aces add 10 and can be played on top of other cards, face cards either add 10 or can be used instead to multiply the result of other cards. So, if you have a 10, add an ace, and then use a king (*4) you could add up to 80 points (10+10 = 20 *4 = 80) to a single roll.
The advanced system adds to the basics by including rules for levels of success, options for including extra bonus or penalty dice, close calls and cliffhangers, and several moderately detailed options for use in combat, chase scenes (“Run Over Pedestrian” being one of the best maneuvers ever), and super-science/mystical contests. Examples of these extra options include targeting specific areas or using specific maneuvers in combat, doing special tricks and stunts in chases, and spiffing out your flying device.
All in all the system works well. It’s fun, it’s quick, and yet has enough player-centrism and control through nifty little widgets like card play (and in the advanced system different suits of cards can have different effects on play) that it lets players and GMs feel that their choices and tactics really have an effect on the course of the game.
The best thing about Two Fisted Tales is that its basic system is easy enough to get people into the game in a single night. Getting a template driven character and explaining the basics of dice rolling and card play takes less than 20 minutes, so the game is a great thing for quick-start games and one offs. It does have enough finicky bits and a good enough experience system to be run in the long term as well, but I very much liked the right into the fist-swinging action feel of the game.
The other thing that some pulp fans may like is the genericity of Two Fisted Tales. Though I never personally had a problem with Adventure! I know that many folk founds its ties to setting, via telluric energy and the like, to be limiting or that disliked the idea that all pulp heroes are created by exposure to the energy, rather than just being that way naturally. Well, none of that is an issue in Two Fisted Tales, and those who want that degree of freedom can get it here.
The organization of the book is not always the best. The rules for card play, for example, are split across several different sections (luck, basic system, combat system, etc) and the rules for schticks are all the way at the end of the book, completely separated from either the chargen or even NPC sections of the book. While this is not a killer problem, it does occasionally lead to annoyances when flipping through the book (or scrolling down the screen) looking for a specific reference that isn’t in the section you’d think it would be in.
The cover. Sorry. I love Christopher Shy when he’s in the right frame as much as anyone else (and more than most), but I don’t think his cover properly evokes the pulp feel or spirit.
For having a good, solid system that’s light enough to pick up fast but strong enough to sustain Two Fisted Tales gets a 4 in substance. For having mediocre layout, occasionally overly dry writing, and yet still managing to capture some solid pulp feel it gets a 3 in style. If you like pulp but didn’t like Adventure!’s dice pools or ties to setting, and found Dime Heroes too light, you should check this one out.
