Is Broken Compass my best bet for some Indiana Jones styled pulp? Hollow Earth Expedition? Pulp Cthulhu?
savage worlds works pretty well for pulp
>>96863552>>96863848These are the obvious suggestions already. I guess there's also Dicey Tales or Everywhen, but really, you already have the best suggestions covered.
>>96863552The original IJ game was Masterbook and then D6. So something like Mini Six would work great. Maybe give the players more health/soak than they'd usually have. Base rules are pretty lethal.
I believe Outgunned has pretty much replaced Broken Compass now. Outgunned Adventure in particular for 1930s pulp.
GURPS: Cliffhangers But seriously, GURPS handles this genre quite well when you use cinematic rules.
>pulp pulp pulpYou keep using this word, but what does it actually mean in terms of tabletop games?
>>96865822Fair question. Pulp covers tons of different genres, from Conan to scifi to crime to what OP asked, Indy Jones. I guess the joining thread is no/low-magic, action-heavy, talky-light games that follow the logic of a cheap adventure serial (or, for a more contemporary equivalent, action movie).
>>96865950Shit, I used to have a file perfect for what OP is looking for; it was only a few pages (maybe even one), but it involved the players actually shouting BANG or calling their actions as quick as possible when the referee starts a timer. Consequences would happen if you freeze up or get too aggressive, so it requires players to not only be quick on the draw, but precise with what they declare. Very chaotic, fast-paced, punchy, and lethal, but I forgot its name. I think someone on this board made it a long time ago? Fuck me.One trope-heavy system that I do recall, and still can be fast-paced is Risus. The MS Paint Stick Figure aesthetic can largely be ignored in favor of one's own theater of the mind, the system itself seems like a love-letter to pulp as a whole.In the context you established, OP would definitely benefit from something rules lite and run in a way that says few words while getting to and from the bits of action as quickly as possible.
>>96863552Prowlers and Paragons
>>96865181Isn't it the exact same shit and didn't they get back the BC label anyway now?
>>96863552I recommend Raiders of the Lost Artifacts, it's cheap, it's easier and gets the pulpy adventure thing with even scifi gadgets very wellPulp is a massively underrated genre. People get it without knowing it's pulp. There are surprisingly very few pieces of media about archeology/treasure hunting; Indiana, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Tintin, National Treasure, Romancing the Stone, Mines of King Solomon, The Librarian, Spelunky.Sounds like a lot but there ought to be more
>>96865822Pulp fiction aimed for a cheap thrill without being too concerned with artistic depth or meeting the standards of academia. It's crime thrillers, sword & sorcery fantasy, movie serials with wacky sci-fi like rayguns, jetpacks and X-ray goggles. They're not necessarily dumb or frivolous though.
>>96865822pulp stories are like rules-light games that are very lenient on the players where the GM has a vague idea of the plot, but improvises most of it depending on what the players do and throws them a bone of varying quality if they get stuck.Like every damn hard boiled detective story has a part where the detective is knocked out and taken to the villains which is like the GM forcing things when it's clear the players have no clue what to do next
>>96871410> Like every damn hard boiled detective story has a part where the detective is knocked out and taken to the villains which is like the GM forcing things when it's clear the players have no clue what to do nextThat's a James Bond spy trope, but he's already in the villans lair, base or HQ, so you don't know what you're talking about.
>>96871539wow I wonder where Ian Fleming got that from? could it be the pulp fiction published decades before he wrote his books?!?
Genesys is the system you want to try for pulp adventures.>>96871173 and >>96871410 both hit the nail on the head about what kind of experience pulp stories intend to convey. Genesys excels at bringing this experience to life in TTRPG format through the narrative dice system.It was quite literally designed to empower the GM and players to tell these exact kinds of stories, to have those moments where all hope seems lost, where the protagonist pulls a rabbit out of their hat, etc.
>>96871891Fleming didn't write those scenarios, they only exist in the films (see TV Tropes Bond Villain Stupidity / James Bond). Can you name a single pulp they took that from?
>>96867494Outgunned is basically Broken Compass 2.0. They cleaned up some rules, made some changes based on player feedback and renamed it because they lost the rights to Broken Compass (and yes, they recently got it back).Plus, Outgunned is not limited to pulp era settings. It covers all action movie type settings.
>>96872414The Phantom was always getting caught by the bad guys and taken to their lair.For that matter, so was Batman. Both predate Bond by several decades.
>>96873516Can you point to any specific examples?
>>96873455I got that, but it does seem basically just an errata. >>96871163Amusingly enough, DND and its fantasy derivatives basically ate the space that there was for treasure hunting.
>>96872414Happens in Casino Royale and Goldfinger.
