Osprey's Pulp!: A Reading Review

"Okay you dirty rat about Pulp! What's the verdict?" 

Actually I'm not sure. I love the Osprey Wargames 64 page format games and I love Hollywood skirmish gaming so let's take a read of Pulp! by Marco Arnaudo.

Wow. That's some teeny, tiny font. I need to run upstairs and get my reading glasses and another Osprey Wargames book to compare. (Pause) There, that's better. Hmmm . . . yep. That's some teeny tiny font and smaller than previous games I have purchased. Oh well, more bang for the buck.

Hmmm . . . first impression. I really need to change my style of reading. I started scanning through the book and not really doing a deep dive. I need to put it down and read it tomorrow - especially when I'm not tired.

Okay. Let's read from the beginning again.  A Pulp game has to be able to cover a wide variety from crime thrillers, to space opera, to horror, to historical fiction, and beyond.  That is a tall order for any game system to cover such a spectrum of potential game types. In the book's own words, the rules are "a scenario based, skirmish wargame where players take on the roles of heroes and villains inspired by the pulp fiction of the 1920's and 30's." 

I must admit, I admire what Marco Arnaudo has attempted to do in 64 pages. He has developed a game that is an introductory skirmish game for beginners and enough extra meat in the advance rules to appeal to experienced games. Be warned (BWAH HAH HAH)! Experienced players will need to use the tools provided to develop challenging scenarios and game play - don't expect the book to do that as there are only two example scenarios - but lots of ideas. There are some great illustrations and photo's of mostly figures from Pulp Figures with a few from Artizan Designs.

Deep Dive: To provide the pulp flavor and help give Pulp heroes and villains a bit more of a punch, they can use Special Points (SPs) to buy Special Benefits which give advantages and special rules.  Most heroes/villains get 3 SPs for a game (Superheroes, which are rare, get 4). However, it is interesting that each one is a single use only, so the only way you can continue to use the advantage is to buy it more than once.  This is very different from other games, and I liked it as a nice way to balance some of these unusual rules - how it works once we play a game I'll let you know if that's what really happens! The use of SPs also feels "Pulp" as the heroes or villains  frequently use some special skill to save the day, or avoid a cliffhanger, cause a disaster; but typically they only use the same skill once in a series.  

For attacking, figures use a "firepower" style mechanic where you roll dice based on the weapon, and look for the skill of the shooter to score a hit.  Modifiers are applied for cover, LOS, etc.  Targets that are hit get a Protection roll to avoid getting hit.  A hit causes suppression, and a second hit causes a wound, and a second wound causes a Knocked Out (KO). That gives our "heroic" characters some resilience.  In melee, there are no suppression hits, only wounds.  There are a variety of weapos available; especially some "Pulpy Weapons". My personal favorite is the Death Ray Gun. It fires DEATH! If the target fails the protection roll, so sorry. No suppression, no wounds - only DEATH. BWAH HAH HAH. Okay the figure is KO'd but you get the point.

Now there are some concepts that I think we will have to get the hang of when we play a game. Most Heroes/Villians are single model units, but henchmen are in small groups of 2-4. That is fine, but within the group they activate and take actions individually.  This seems a bit cumbersome as opposed to the group activating as a group. However, you typically only have 1-2 groups of henchmen.  If they were going to resolve actions individually, you might as well let them pool their dice and all take the same action at once anyway. We'll see how it works. And as for activation rolls, you either like it or hate it - personally I like it. There is also a kinda/sorta RPG  element as you can give your single model Heroes and Villains access to Life Experience that give different benefits, as well as some Traumas and Phobias. This makes your main characters unique and is a MUST for Pulp! style adventures especially if you are doing a campaign.

Since this is a skirmish game, there are all sorts of movement related stuff you can do.  Most of them are all lumped into the rules under movement, so they might be hard to find later when searching for the exact way to do it.  However, they are there and that is good.  You will want your hero to jump from rooftop to rooftop at some point! Interestingly, the action you choose on activation also will impact how much you can move.  

The book spends several pages on Scenario design but only has two sample scenarios. I appreciate the effort to lay-out different deployment types, and ways to add chrome to a scenario. I feel many experienced gamers will find this section of the book dissatisfying. Given the large swathe of game types this book is trying to cover, it makes sense to take this approach over hard and fast scenarios.  

What I think Fu Manchu did to the rules to Irritate me: When the rules were advertised, and is on the back cover, it states that it is suitable for both solo and cooperative play . . . couldn't find anything about that in the rules unless Marco was referring to the activation rules? ARRRRGGGHHH!!! When I can't get together with my friends, I do a lot of solo gaming (hello Mr. Babbage). In the rules they do say there will probably be additional scenario books, etc. Bummer. Don't expect to find a Quick Reference guide either.

STOP THE PRESSES!!!

Before I posted I found this out: It looks like Osprey heard this loud and clear and it looks like it was an editing mistake. Osprey recognized this and quickly put out free-rules for solo/co-op play on their website.  They seem to be a combination of random dice roll for result and order of operations for the enemy AI.  Nothing is really detailed on deployment or scenario modifications.  Therefore, I would suggest that this game works best as a Versus affair. I'll play a solo game and let you know what I think.

There are not any rules or even simple rules for vehicles.  I think this is a big mistake, as car chases and the like were a staple of the genre.  There is a lot of discussion about animals in the book though. You want animals, they got animals. With some simple modifications robots, etc., can be made using the animal rules. Since this is an introductory skirmish game, I think from reading the ruleset it is a bit too generic and it ends up feeling a bit flavorless and missing that two-fisted hero of action that it needs to pop off the page like a purple-prosed serial or early comics panel.  It tries to be all things to all people when a tighter focus like Flash Gordon style space adventures, The Shadow-esque crime heroes, or Back-of Beyond adventures would have made a tighter, more flavorful game.

PULP! is a serviceable set of rules; but it does not do for pulp gaming what the classic In Her Majesty's Name brought to Victorian Science Fiction/Steam Punk skirmishing. If I was new to the genre and wargaming in general this set of rules would leave me a bit bewildered about how to proceed.  It is a really good tool box, but how these tools go together is not always 100% clear.  An experience gamer can bring the newcomer along. I appreciated the RPG-lite elements and the Special Points, but it is not clear to the beginner how to use them to make a great game or game units.   

Well all that is left to do is play test. Get ready for game reports.