First of all, a minor nitpick. I dislike the "pulp RPG" label. Pulp, like anime, is a medium and not a genre per se; granted, it's a medium with certain tropes and conventions, but a medium nonetheless. There's pulp SF, and pulp fantasy, and of course, pulp "men's adventure" stories, which is what most so-called "pulp RPGs" actually do: stalwart hairy-chested heroes battling vicious cannibal tribesmen in dark African or South American jungles, toppling shadowy crime lords in the streets of Hong Kong or New York, or racing Nazi saboteurs for the Hollow Earth or lost Eldorado. Indiana Jones, Doc Savage, the works.

So, being somewhat burned out on Savage Worlds (great system for emulating physics-be-damned fast-paced action-adventure as seen in a Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay movie; not so much for real, honest-to-God pulp), I'm looking for a system for this sort of game.

• Rules-light to rules-medium. Savage Worlds, TSR-era D&D and the CoC iteration of BRP are a few systems which dwell on my crunch comfort zone. Agile character creation (random or otherwise) is very, very important to me.


• Combat should be more dangerous than Savage Worlds, but not as deadly as GURPS or Rolemaster.


• I'm OK with minor story-based mechanics like drama/fate/action/hero/etc. points, but generally speaking I'm strongly predisposed towards traditional, emulative, gamey frameworks.


• Support for weird stuff (magic, psionics, mystic martial arts, weird science, alien technology, etc.) is a must.


• Setting materail is always welcome.

I'm not familiar with a whole slew of games. I've thumbed through Hollow Earth Expedition and it looks damn sexy, but I'm not sure how it measures up in actual play. I know Two-Fisted Tales enjoys some popularity 'round these parts but I don't know anything about the system. BRP might do the trick with some add-ons for extra pulpiness.

Input and suggestions more than welcome.

Two-Fisted Tales is the pulp game I like best.

Quote from: Sigmund;479319Two-Fisted Tales is the pulp game I like best.

The blurb does look fantastic.

What's the system like?

You might give Bedrock Games a look.

http://www.bedrockgames.net/

As yet unplayed by me, but was about to order a book or two following my next successful mugging.

Quote from: The Butcher;479323The blurb does look fantastic.

What's the system like?

The most basic check is just straight ability number vs. target number. next up in difficulty is the ability roll, with 2 d10s. One d10 is the bonus die and the other is the penalty die. The 0 or 10 is counted as zero and the bonus is added to the ability while the penalty is subtracted, with the goal being to beat the target number. These rolls explode on a 9. It is advised that the roll is not needed for pedestrian actions, but this isn't unusual anymore players can use a deck of cards as well, with different cards adding different amounts to the check, but card use needs to be announced before the roll. The suits of the cards also have different effects. It's a simple but very cool mechanic, IMO.

Combat is in one second turns with combatants rolling against each other. There are crits and fumbles, with weapons having set damage values, although melee weapons have the very cool mechanic of having the characters muscle rating defining the base damage for melee weapons and then each type of weapon adding certain amounts to the base. Frex, a switchblade is base+2 where a spear is base+6. There's various special actions that can be performed both in and out of combat, such as "enthrall", which is basically distracting an enemy, to stunts while driving, etc... There's a nice chapter called "Investigations" that gives advice and techniques for less than brilliant players playing Doc Savage type over-achievers, such as being allowed to consult other players ooc, and the "Oops, I didn't mean that" mechanic, where the player can make a savvy roll if the player RPs something in a way the character probably wouldn't.

The abilities are:
brains, luck, mind, muscle, reflexes, savvy, status, and wierd. I LOVE that it has a "wierd" stat too. This stat basically communicates how odd and accomplished the character is. and controls what the min and max of all the other stats are, which is a subtle yet brilliant thing, IMO. The premise is the more the character's stats move towards the extremes, the more unusual that individual is. the stats also have "specialties" and "masteries" that are like skills. The game also includes defects that increase the point pool for chargen, which is pretty standard for point buy it seems. My favorite section, though is the Scenario Creation System, which is the random adventure creation.

Quote from: Vmerc@;479330You might give Bedrock Games a look.

http://www.bedrockgames.net/

As yet unplayed by me, but was about to order a book or two following my next successful mugging.

Thanks for suggesting our games Vmerc@. In all honesty though I think available games may fall short of the butcher's requirement for "Support for weird stuff (magic, psionics, mystic martial arts, weird science, alien technology, etc.) is a must." With the exception of Horror Show our games are mundane and naturalistic.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;479334Thanks for suggesting our games Vmerc@. In all honesty though I think available games may fall short of the butcher's requirement for "Support for weird stuff (magic, psionics, mystic martial arts, weird science, alien technology, etc.) is a must." With the exception of Horror Show our games are mundane and naturalistic.

I'd still love to play Terror Network though. But yeah, for the wierd pulp, I'd go with TFT.

I don't have a favorite. Pulp for me is kind of like a vibe, a style. It's not a genre.

You might want to take a look at the Cortex system (the folks that have done rpgs for Serenity, Supernatural, Leverage, and Smallville I think).  It's not too heavy rules-wise, and between the various "world" books does have support for the weird stuff.  I'll admit that I've only gotten (or even looked at) the stuff for Serenity so I don't know how well the generic or other stuff works.

Dogs of W*A*R was made for pulp 70's & 80's action in the style of Mack Bolan, Phoenix Force and Able Team.

Dicey Tales was made for pulp adventures of a few decades earlier.

I bought a copy of the old pulp RPG Daredevils a year or so back - nice, great intro adventures, but too crunchy in that old school 'makes no sense' sort of way.  

I'm not sure there is a good system with deadliness in-between Call of Cthulu and Savage Worlds.  Personally I'd probably go ahead and use BRP/Call of Cthulu; before you get to modern Bruckheimer/Bay territory most pulp-tale exploits are doable in CoC.  Or for high-octane, maybe a d20 iteration like d20 Call of Cthulu or d20 Modern (except I hate all that 'Fast Hero' drek); start PCs at 3rd or 4th level.

Spirit of the Century is my go-to pulp adventure game of choice. That said, it fits this point...

Quote from: The Butcher;479317

• Combat should be more dangerous than Savage Worlds, but not as deadly as GURPS or Rolemaster.

less well. If you want something a bit grittier, Hollow Earth Expedition is a good game and fits you list pretty damned well. It had a good degree of character definition, it's point mechanic is limited in scope. The resolution system is a pretty slick gimmick-free take on a dice pool. It has a pretty good set of setting material.

The only thing I'm not particularly fond if is that it falls into the "new WoD" trap of making weapon skill and weapon damage essentially the same thing, but if you are okay with that particular abstraction, you should be golden.

Quote from: Benoist;479397I don't have a favorite. Pulp for me is kind of like a vibe, a style. It's not a genre.

Ben, he pretty well laid out exactly what he was talking about in post 1. Picking at this "pulp is not a genre" thing at this point is a little unfair.

I like Two-Fisted Tales and Dicey Tales. I am not familiar with Savage Worlds so I couldn't say which is deadlier. Dicey Tales is definitely the most rules-light of them and probably also the least deadly.

I like Hollow Earth Expedition overall but personally find the Ubiquity system a bit fiddly/clunky for pulp.

May as well float a few things based on what I've read - though I haven't played alot of these, actually, sorry.
 
*Adventure! - a White Wolf game so you probably know basically what to expect here; it was one of the first WoD games to switch over to set target numbers. I enjoyed playing the other games in the series, Aberrant and Trinity, but haven't read Adventure - but it sounds like its designed to do the sort of stuff you want to do. Weird stuff rules may be adaptable from the World of Darkness supplement of your choice, if there isn't native support.
 
*D6 System is I think free, and I think would work for what you're after.
 
*Palladium? (I think you were sort of into this, unless your former avatar deceives me...?) I don't know what system would be the best fit, exactly - you could steal bits from various games e.g. OCCs from Rifts, BSP, or Ninjas and Superspies as appropriate for the players (even Palladium fantasy to do African tribesmen and the like).
 
*Cadillacs & Dinosaurs: more obscure but the rules here cover alot of the sort of stuff you might want if your doing a "hunting in Africa" or "Lost World" type game, though less so for generic pulp. Good firearms and vehicles rules, encounters, vehicle mechanical failures rules, details on how much meat you can get out of a stegosaurus: the overall system is basically a slightly streamlined version of the GDW House System (like Twilight: 2000, 2nd edition). Reputedly not overly lethal despite having gun rules and specific hit locations.
Native support for weird stuff is fairly well nonexistent, though if you also had its sister game Dark Conspiracy, that has a range of various psionics skills, as well as weird monsters and tech.
 
Other things that come to mind might be Fuzion (another universal system, not specifically pulp) and Masterbook - somewhat pulp-flavoured I think and has some interesting features (Drama Deck etc) but more complex than you've specified.