Quote from: CRKrueger;750669That's because when you say a "pulp" game you include with it genre-savvy meta-awareness on the part of the players and GM, which is how people who enjoy narrative games usually look at it.  -level mechanics required.
d.

This is a key point for me. I am totally fine with mechanics that help emulate genre physics and even do things like give protagonists added protection. But it isn't the only way to design a game and lots of people hate that stuff. So I think it is entirely fair to make a pulp rpg that gives no buffer from death to player characters. It depends on what you are trying to achieve and who your audience is. But to say Pulp has to mean plot protection feels off to me (because plot plot protection is a product of something being a story, not of it being pulp). Especially when it comes to something like CoC, which in my view is pulp derived, having plot protection doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

My favourite pulp fiction is the adventures of Khlit the Cossack that Harold Lamb wrote for Adventure magazine. The protagonist is no superhero; he's an aging outcast who relies far more on his cunning than his sword-arm. In fact, one of the common traits of pulp fiction is how the protagonists rely on their wits and resourcefulness more than raw power and brawn. If pulp became a KAPOW-BLAM! genre, it seems to have happened once gamers got their hands on hit.

Of course, in any serialized fiction the protagonist will have plot immunity. But that's no more or less a feature of pulp fiction than any other genre.

Quote from: Haffrung;750683If pulp became a KAPOW-BLAM! genre, it seems to have happened once gamers got their hands on hit.

It's not just gamers. A lot of newer genre movies are borderline superhero movies... the way they're filmed, the fast editing, the ridiculous CGI-augmented stunts.
Over the weekend, before Godzilla, I saw the trailer for Maleficent and even that looked like a fucking superhero movie... and on the way home the 8yr old I went with started dreaming up the Godzilla sequel and how Godzilla would have 'more powers'.
It's all about the powers... and an 8yr old mindset.

Quote from: Simlasa;750732It's not just gamers. A lot of newer genre movies are borderline superhero movies... the way they're filmed, the fast editing, the ridiculous CGI-augmented stunts.
Over the weekend, before Godzilla, I saw the trailer for Maleficent and even that looked like a fucking superhero movie... and on the way home the 8yr old I went with started dreaming up the Godzilla sequel and how Godzilla would have 'more powers'.
It's all about the powers... and an 8yr old mindset.

Heroic = The hero succeeding through determination, even though he may be outclassed or hurt
Superheroic = The hero succeeding 'cuz he's just that awesome

I vastly prefer the former, though most young kids like the latter.

Quote from: robiswrong;750734I vastly prefer the former, though most young kids like the latter.

Oh, I don't think it's just the 'young kids'... unless that includes the 50yr old man-child I saw pumping his sandwich at the Transformers preview. I think it's an oversaturation of spectacle/action/handjobs in entertainment... like eating so much salt/sugar that you can't taste food without it anymore... "Oh, characters are talking, BOOOORING!"

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;750671This is a key point for me. I am totally fine with mechanics that help emulate genre physics and even do things like give protagonists added protection. But it isn't the only way to design a game and lots of people hate that stuff. So I think it is entirely fair to make a pulp rpg that gives no buffer from death to player characters. It depends on what you are trying to achieve and who your audience is. But to say Pulp has to mean plot protection feels off to me (because plot plot protection is a product of something being a story, not of it being pulp). Especially when it comes to something like CoC, which in my view is pulp derived, having plot protection doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

OK, but I haven't seen anyone arguing that Call of Cthulhu should have absolute plot protection. On the other hand, the OP explicitly argues: I posit that true-to-source pulp gaming not only admits but requires actual danger (meaning grittiness and lethality, and a lack of plot points).

I would say that you can have gritty and lethal true-to-source pulp gaming, and you can also have light-hearted, low-lethality true-to-source pulp gaming.

In short, I see no reason why I can't like both Call of Cthulhu and Spirit of the Century as pulp games - in the same way that I like both The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai.

Quote from: Simlasa;750756Oh, I don't think it's just the 'young kids'... unless that includes the 50yr old man-child I saw pumping his sandwich at the Transformers preview. I think it's an oversaturation of spectacle/action/handjobs in entertainment... like eating so much salt/sugar that you can't taste food without it anymore... "Oh, characters are talking, BOOOORING!"

Pretty much. Glutted on crude sensation. The other night I actually turned off the Desolation of Smaug during the interminable barrel-raft scene. 16 minutes of jumping and shooting and bouncing and falling and shooting and rolling and jumping and shooting and falling and shooting and shooting and bouncing and rolling completely numbed me. The kinetic frenzy ceased to engage me at all. So I turned off the movie, and let the 48 hour rental lapse. I've read the Hobbit three times, but the movie clearly wasn't catered to me.

I used to be able to drink a whole Big Gulp of Dr. Pepper. When I was 13. I couldn't even choke back a third of one today without gagging. The idea that man-children out there guzzle back liters of fizzy sugar-water a day is dismaying.

Quote from: jhkim;750784I would say that you can have gritty and lethal true-to-source pulp gaming, and you can also have light-hearted, low-lethality true-to-source pulp gaming.

In short, I see no reason why I can't like both Call of Cthulhu and Spirit of the Century as pulp games - in the same way that I like both The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai.

I agree with that.

Quote from: Simlasa;750756Oh, I don't think it's just the 'young kids'... unless that includes the 50yr old man-child I saw pumping his sandwich at the Transformers preview. I think it's an oversaturation of spectacle/action/handjobs in entertainment... like eating so much salt/sugar that you can't taste food without it anymore... "Oh, characters are talking, BOOOORING!"

It's certainly not limited to *just* children.  But I do think that *most* people grow out of it.

Unfortunately, I also think that many RPGs provide that need so well that I believe that mentality is over-represented.

Quote from: jhkim;750784you can also have light-hearted, low-lethality true-to-source pulp gaming.

Not by any sane definition of "true-to-source", you don't. Just because Stardust The Super Wizard is a Golden Age character, I wouldn't call a hypothetical self-styled Golden Age supers RPG that went out of its way to emulate this one crazy, off-kilter comic "true to" or representative of the genre.

Quote from: jhkim;750784In short, I see no reason why I can't like both Call of Cthulhu and Spirit of the Century as pulp games - in the same way that I like both The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai.

No one is beholden to consistency in taste, least of all to an avowed Rifts fan like myself, but I don't think The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai are even remotely in the same genre. Which is incidentally why "cinematic" is even worse a label than "pulp" but that's an argument for another day.

ITT: People who sit around rolling dice and playing make believe make fun of people who like superhero action for enjoying something that isn't "adult".

Quote from: The Butcher;750822Which is incidentally why "cinematic" is even worse a label than "pulp" but that's an argument for another day.

Heh.  No doubt, I can see it now.

GM - Let's play a cinematic WWII game.
PC's - Oh yeah!
...later...
PC's - Out of Ammo, we charge the machinegun nest head on with fixed bayonets.
GM rolls dice - You're cut to pieces in the crossfire of 3 MG-42s.
PC - What?  I thought this was a cinematic game.
GM - It is, ever seen Saving Private Ryan?

Quote from: Emperor Norton;750841ITT: People who sit around rolling dice and playing make believe make fun of people who like superhero action for enjoying something that isn't "adult".

ITT: Now a second drive-by better-than-thou post shows up.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750844GM - It is, ever seen Saving Private Ryan?

Awesome.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750845ITT: Now a second drive-by better-than-thou post shows up.

Dude, I wasn't even talking about your argument about genre or, unless I missed you joining in on that stupidity, anything you even said.

I was directing that at all the people who are calling people who like movies with superhero style action manchildren when they are sitting on a website devoted to rolling dice and pretending to be an elf.

I suppose its different though, because their elf is gritty and can die... wooo so adult of them.