{"id":3461,"date":"2010-12-11T22:25:55","date_gmt":"2010-12-12T04:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roleplayerschronicle.com\/?p=3461"},"modified":"2014-04-19T20:52:46","modified_gmt":"2014-04-20T01:52:46","slug":"users-guide-the-pulp-genre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roleplayerschronicle.com\/?p=3461","title":{"rendered":"Users Guide: The Pulp Genre"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article is a continuation of the Genres in Gaming<\/a> series of articles written to help players and GMs determine which games are available within the genres they want to play. The lists of systems contained throughout or by no means exhaustive. All game systems are listed within the sub-genre as I understand from the knowledge I have. If they are improperly categorized, please post a comment further explaining what the sub-genre should be and why.<\/p>\n

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So what is pulp?\u00a0 Pulp is a hard genre to define.\u00a0 Pulp is virtually anything and everything it wants to be.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fairly distinct style that is easy to see but sometimes difficult to explain.\u00a0 You could think of Pulp as being the type of story you would read about in the early 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Or maybe a high adventure film where the hero is trying to save a wondrous item from falling into the wrong hands.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s a spin on World War I officers after the war had ended.\u00a0 Whatever it is, the genre still remains popular after about 100 years of publication.<\/p>\n

(Modern) Pulp<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Pulp is in itself a genre and a sub-genre, I\u2019m using the term Modern as a loose way of describing the Pulp publications that have a system or setting that takes place either in the modern time, a modern location, or simply devoid of the extra fantasy or science fiction elements. This is where grand adventures are to be had within the depths of the known planet or maybe a remote island of unknown origins filled with vicious creatures. While the (Modern) Pulp sub-genre may take most (if not all) of its influence from the pulp fiction and magazines of old, they have definitely grown from the simple stories into complete systems designed around the experience to be had.<\/p>\n

One thing to distinguish (Modern) Pulp from other systems and settings is the way a hero is presented.\u00a0 They may be a common person with great knowledge and grand aspirations, or possibly a grand hero who appears bigger than life, or maybe they are great inventors with ideas that everyone around them laughs at.\u00a0 The key is that they don\u2019t have to fit a \u201cstandard\u201d mold such as the great warriors in Fantasy or the power-armored marines in Science Fiction. But there always seems to be something heroic about these characters, although no one else may know it.<\/p>\n

The following systems are representative of (Modern) Pulp and may have numerous published supplements. Each one is noted as the game system, game setting (where applicable), and publisher displayed as: System \u2013 Setting (Publisher).<\/p>\n