Quote from: walkerpYou've got him on all cylinders, JHKim.  By his logic, a license of the Brendan Fraser The Mummy would be pretentious, theme-exploration.  Actually, by his logic, the movie itself is pretentious theme-exploration, same for Raiders.

No, but a licensed "Mummy RPG" where the authors claimed they were making the defining RPG about the "mummy phenomenon" and instead talked a lot about the literary "themes" of mummies and modern interpretations of mummy legends; and cited their main inspiration as Warren Ellis comics, Wacharski brothers films, anything BUT the Mummy, would be pretentious wankery, yes.

RPGPundit

Quote from: walkerpHe should play the game.  It's pretty fun.

If (make that WHEN) I get around to running a pulp game, I'll run Two Fisted Tales. So that I can run an actual, you know, PULP game, rather than engage in pretentious wankery and cheap imitations of Warren Ellis' idiotic mental onanism.

RPGPundit

Man, Fred Hicks and Co. should be afraid. Very afraid. VERY VERY AFRAID of that fine day, which must surely come, when that guy is going to take notice of SotC who used to stalk Bruce Baugh for deviating ever so slightly from pulp canon in Adventure. And Bruce was actually able to cite chapter and verse at him. TO zero avail, of course.

Zoran Bekric. That's the guy.

I can't believe I remember his name.

Pages 1-6 Introduction

Pages 7-275 rules including:
intro basic rules
Chargen
How to do things
Skills
Stunts
Running The Game (basically how to adjudicate skills)

Pages 276-335 Tips and Tricks (mostly non-system specific advice on how to run a fast-paced pulp game)

Pages 336-349 sample adventure

Pages 350-372 setting info

Pages 370-392 stunt packages

Pages 393-394 bibliography

Pages 395-403 sample characters

Pages 404-411 index (important)

The only real mention of theme in there is in the introduction:

QuoteBy a pulp game, we mean a game influenced by the pulps - serial adventures of the early Twentieth Century starring iconic characters like Doc Savage and The Shadow and echoed today in movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.  While the pulps themselves have run their course, their influence can still be felt in contemporary film and television.  If you're not familiar with what the pulps are, then we strongly suggest reading Brian Christopher Misiazsek's spectacular article The Pulp Avengers at:  http://www.fantasylibrary.com/lounge/pulpavenger.htm.

Further down they say:

QuoteWe seek to capture the spirit of the pulps - a spirit of simplicity, two fists of fury, and little introspection.

That's little introspection, not a little introspection.

In the section that is the closest I can find to anything remotely near the literary pretension you claim the book is "laden" with, the section where they talk about optimism, the final sentence says this:

QuoteIn the end, the question for a character is simple.  The world can and should be a better place.  What are you doing about that?

I really am hard pressed to find anything in this book beyond that that is not direct genre emulation.  So your entire argument rests on the bibliography and some vague allusions in the first 6 pages.

And TFT sounds great.  It's existence is not some righteous slap in the face of SotC. They are both slightly different approaches to what can always be an excellent meal.  While we're at it, let's not forget Pulp Hero, Adventure!, GURPS Cliffhanger and many other great RPG interpretations of pulp.  I consider myself a lucky gamer.

Quote from: RPGPunditAre you going to take back your ridiculous claim that TFT somehow can't handle high-powered "superhuman"-level pulp?
Are you going to at least address this massive bit of mudslinging on your part?

Your fury at the suggestion that Two Fisted Tales might run at a slightly more realistic level than SotC is utterly bizarre as well.  The point is made clearly in the rules that combat can be deadly in TFT.  That's a great design choice and makes for a different flavour of game.  There's no value judgement there.  It makes me want to check the game out, as I had said. Why do you see it as some kind of condemnation?

Quote from: J ArcaneWell, I'm sold.  That sounds a fuck of a lot more like the Raymond Chandler novels I read than any of the over the top nonsense that tends to get called "pulp" on RPG forums these days.  

Chandler is not pulp.  And many purists consider him to be fairly pretentious and fruity when compared to Hammett.  Do some learning and then come back to the discussion.  Actually, don't come back.

Let me continue to slap this little bitch around, since he decided to jump into the deep end of the pool.

Quote from: J ArcaneNo, you're full of shit.  You're ignoring the actual point he was making in favor of niggling semantics regarding the specific words he was using.  

It's very damn clear to me that what he was getting across was that SotC is about the modernized version of "pulp" that gets talked up on message boards, as opposed to the pulp that was actually printed in that historical era in literature.

You instead just chose to pick one single word and yammer on about it like a twat.  And by quoting a list of references, most of which are of relatively recent appearance, you only supported exactly the point he was making.

I suspect you need to just chill the fuck out and read what he was actually saying, instead of going into knee-jerk semantics and making yourself look like an ass.

May I disrespectfully ask you to do the same, then please fuck off to the hole where you were hiding these last pleasant weeks.

Read again what Pundit said:

Quote from: RPGPunditThe simple fact is that what SoTC does isn't really an emulation of Pulp. Its an emulation of the discussions people like to have about pulp and shit like that.

Quote from: RPGPunditengage in pretentious wankery and cheap imitations of Warren Ellis' idiotic mental onanism.

Quote from: RPGPunditJohn, I do think its quite an interesting point you make about SoTC's bibliography; it makes it clear that the game isn't really about pulp as it is about "interpreting" pulp.  

Quote from: RPGPunditI said it was an emulation of those discussions. Obviously, in SoTC people don't just sit around and talk about pulp; my point was that the game is not based on pulp; its based on wacked out ideas pseudointellectuals have about the supposed "themes" of pulp and trying to make those ideas come alive, rather than just smashing nazis. Its theme-focused rather than an actual emulation of the genre itself.

Your bibliography-quoting confirms that statement because it demonstrates that the authors were not particularly interested in emulating the genre, they were interested in addressing how people think "about" pulp.

Now go away.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityZoran Bekric. That's the guy.

I can't believe I remember his name.

Umm... How, exactly did I "stalk" Baugh?

I live in Australia. Have done so all my life. As far as I'm aware, Baugh lives in somewhere in North America. That pretty puts an entire hemisphere between the two of us. My interactions with Baugh were spread over four fora, all of which I joined either before he did or in complete ignorance that he was a member.

Still, I suppose I'm in good company. I understand that the RPGPundit has also been accused of "stalking" Baugh.

If you want to accuse me of committing a crime, then please be prepared to back it up by presenting some evidence. Otherwise, I'll thank you keep your slanders to yourself.

OMG.

That was quick.

Just four fora.

I loved those Adventure review threads. How you liking SOtC, Zoran?

Quote from: jhkimI tried out the 2nd edition briefly.  It did a number of things reasonably well.  It has better description of the pulp genres than SotC.  It has fairly good GMing advice.  I think the system is OK for a subset of the old pulps, such as the relatively low-power gritty detective stories.  

Really, though, I think most people aren't really interested in playing out old-style pulps.  They want vaguely pulp-like action, which to them means just being over-the-top and not sweating the details.  Spirit of the Century it about fighting gorillas on biplanes.  

Two-Fisted Tales (at least in 2nd ed) has only token nods to the pulp origins, being mostly a gritty system like GURPS Lite.  It has some optional rules for more pulp-like action, but it isn't built in by default.  It is also fairly deadly to PCs -- admittedly so.  In many ways it is more true to the gritty detective stories at the origins of pulp, but I think most gamers are more interested in the immediate action.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't make a lot of sense.

On one hand you say TFT has a "better description of the pulp genres than SotC" and "the system is OK for a subset of the old pulps", then you say "has only token nods to the pulp origins" and it "has some optional rules for more pulp-like action, but it isn't built in by default".

So, which is it?

And what do you mean by "pulp-like action"? Action like that which appeared in the pulps? Or something else? As far as I can tell, if the action is like that which appeared in the old pulps, then it is, by definition, "pulp-like action".

Any pulp game is only going to represent a subset of the old pulps. They were a medium and covered a lot of ground. The highest selling pulp was Street and Smith's Love Story Magazine, and neither TFT or SotC covers the material presented in that magazine very well. It's like doing a RPG based on movies; it will only be able to cover a subset of movies. An action movie RPG probably won't do comedies very well.

The difference between TFT and SotC, as far as I can tell, is that the material TFT covers is a subset of the old pulps, while the material SotC covers isn't even a subset. None of it ever appeared in the old pulps.

Now, I have no objection to what games like SotC seek to emulate, but I do get tired of being told it's "pulp". It's not. And to claim that it is, is basically false advertising. I'm tired of people trying to sell me games by claiming they're "pulp" when they obviously aren't.

Now, you may well be right when you say that the type of material SotC covers is more popular than the original pulp novels and that more people prefer to play games based on that material, but that doesn't make the new material or the games based on it "pulp". And it's dishonest to claim that it does.

If, for example, a game advertises itself as being anime, but it turns out to be focused on emulating the old Supermarionation shows by Gerry Anderson -- Thunderbirds, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and the like -- then I think anime fans would be quite right to complain that the game isn't really about anime. And sneering that they are just being purists for wanting an anime-based game to actually have something to do with the material presented in Japanese movie and television animation isn't particularly helpful.

This isn't to say that a game based on the old Supermarionation shows would be a bad thing, but trying to sell it as "anime" because "anime" has better market recognition or whatever would be wrong. And anime fans would be quite right to complain about such misrepresentation.

If the designers of games like SotC don't actually want to cover the material in the old pulps -- because it's not as popular as the material they do reference -- that's fine. But I don't see what they gain by claiming what they're doing is pulp when it isn't. Except for fooling people looking for an actual pulp game into buying their product under false presences.

Quote from: walkerpChandler is not pulp.

Actually Chandler's earliest stories appeared in Black Mask -- which was, indeed, a pulp magazine. The same stories he later cannibalised for his novels.

QuoteAnd many purists consider him to be fairly pretentious and fruity when compared to Hammett.

Perhaps. And many fans didn't care for either Hammett or Chandler, preferring Carroll John Daly or Erle Stanley Gardner. They all appeared in the pages of the same pulp magazine, though. Which makes them all pulp writers and their work pulp.

Quote from: J ArcaneWell, I'm sold.  That sounds a fuck of a lot more like the Raymond Chandler novels I read than any of the over the top nonsense that tends to get called "pulp" on RPG forums these days.  



Exactly.  


Query though, is this at all related to the freebie "Two-Fisted Tales" that used to be on the internets once upon a time?

As a side note, despite Mr. Kim being involved in this thread, I had to go to his website to find out that it is, indeed, the same author at least, as the TFT game I downloaded all those ages ago.

However, based on the descriptions I have read of the current version, I can only assume that it was completely rewritten since the original freebie version.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI loved those Adventure review threads. How you liking SOtC, Zoran?

Haven't read it. It's on my list of games-I-want-to-get-someday, but it's not very high on that list. The reviews of SotC suggest that it's not necessarily the type of game I'd enjoy, so I'm interested in it as something that I probably should be familiar with given my interest in pulp games, but not something I'd actually like to play.

I was part of subset of gamers that were interested in pulp games before pulp became fashionable. The old days when the games people talked about were Daredevils, Justice, Inc., The Adventures of Indiana Jones and even Crimefighters (from Dragon magazine #47). I think Adventure! was the first of the new wave of "pulp" games and I thought it would be in the tradition of those older games; that is, it would try to emulate the type of material that appeared in the pulps rather than concepts from the work of Warren Ellis. In a somewhat brutal learning experience I discovered that wasn't the case. Somewhere, some marketing guru had decided that "pulp" now had a new meaning and that those who were actually aware of the old pulps were a bunch of old fogies who need to be shouted down so this brilliant new conception could flower.

As a consequence, I still keep an eye out for RPGs labeled "pulp", but I've learned not to expect that the game will actually have anything to do with the pulps. Or that anyone will care if someone points out that it doesn't.

Very interesting, Zoran Bekric (kind of freaky the way you just popped out of nowhere at the mention of your name, btw).  Could you lay out specifically what you see as the things that define the real pulp and the new pulp.  What are some specific elements that show up in modern representations calling themselves pulp that weren't actually in the original ones?

I think I agree with what you are saying, but my reading is limited so I'd like to see some specific examples.

While I understand the origin of the term, I'm not sure if defining anything that was actually printed in the pulps as pulp.  If that's the case, the term means simply the same thing as genre fiction today.