Anybody like pulp adventures?

[NightBird]

Not like the movie Pulp Fiction, but like the pulp era adventure stories. Recent examples would be Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or even Hellboy. Lots of room for bold, dashing heroics and some fun, kinky sex scenes.

Any takers?

[Rayve13]

Pulp can be quite a bit of fun. Consider me interested indeed.

[Caustic]

Very cool idea.  I grew up with a stack of my uncle's comics from the 40s and 50s, and the idea would be very cool.

Anything concrete yet?  And would it be freeform?

[Hunter]

*holds up a hand* Pick me!  Pick me!

[Muse]

This does sound like fun. 

[Celestial Goblin]

Oh yes!
Especially if I can play a lady in this one:)

[LordAnubis]

sounds intriguing.

[NightBird]

*grins happily to see some interest*

What I'm thinking is original characters in a 'contemporary' setting for the pulp era, so the 1930s.  Doc Savage would be a great example, and I was talking with someone about it earlier this evening who pointed out that the first Indiana Jones movie fits the concept, too.  I'll even go for a character with a twist on a classic like Doc Sidhe (http://thepulp.net/PulpCompanion/0206/sidhe.html).

I'm planning that it be freeform, and just as definitely cinematic. I can't imagine the series of die rolls that Sky Captain's flights through New York or some of Professor Jones's stunts with his whip would have required (though that moment when he pulls out the gun to shoot the swordsmaster is also within the scope of the creativity I'd like to see us tossing around). The fun will be in the thrills of the journey, not the suspense over whether they'll ultimately succeed. The game concept would be a small group (say six or so), drawn together perhaps by chance or perhaps by plan, but with the task of saving the World As We Know It. I'll play one team member and handle the opposition (though I'd be happier if I could persuade, cajole or entice one of you gentlemen out there who's good with writing ubervillains to help out). Being here on Elliquiy, some of the dangers and challenges will involve intriguing devices, femme fatale spies, and any other sort of erotic mayhem we can, as a group, come up with.

I'm talking bigger than life, here, characters that can be spun with a phrase, like 'Intrepid Reporter,' 'Mechanical Wizard,' 'German Scientist,' or 'Mysterious Chinaman.'  Foibles are good, though, and would help out a lot in coming up with perils to face.  Going back to Professor Jones, his fear of snakes made for more than one great scene.

So... with all that being said, who's into moving forward with the game?

     (And yes, CG, you can play a lady.  )

[Celestial Goblin]

When it comes to our enemies, we can all contribute. Let's let everyone who wants it propose a part of the menace we are facing.

My character would be...

Pauline Thomson , Reporter of the Amazing!

Ambitious, gorgeous and able. She is first to travel to the most exotic locations and report from most outrageous and dazzling events. Worked her way from small-time scoops from New York to being one of the best in bussines. People either love her or hate her, but the first emotion is evoked more often by the brown-haired beauty with the winner's smile.
She does not posses unbelievable powers, but is an intellectual jack-of-all trades, good athlethe and posseses a keen mind for learning things on the fly.

She has no single dedicated enemies, but in the course of her work she earned many rivals amongst reporters and journalists that would love nothing more than to vex her in some way. Gangsters ended behind bars because of her investigations, socialites had to reveal their dirty secrets and such. On other hand, Pauline can also count on many friends and allies she made in her travels around the world.

A specific nemesis, one she doesn't necessarily have to be aware of would be...

The Royal Society of America!

A conspiracy older than the United States themselves, with ties both amongst the criminal underworld and the world of rich and succesful. This network of influential people seeks to overthrow the modern democracy and install a royal dynasty that would control the whole continent, Canada and Mexico included. The society prefers to work slowly and subtly, but will not stop from even the most evil and destructive acts to attain their well hidded goals.
The persona of a would-be King and Queen are at the moment the best guarded secret of the society and only the inner 'court' is privy to this knowledge.
Those who cross the mysterious paths of the Royal Society of America can expect to meet with masterful intrigues, backed by a lot of money. Assasins employing medieval, but suprisingly effective methods sometimes dispatch those that intrigue alone cannot touch.
There are also rumors of the society's connections with the occult and the conspiracy reaching as far away as other planets where a dark 'king' lives in a cursed palace.

[Elvi]

I'll volunteer to be a 'baddy'.........Elvi likes Ubervillains......Mwuhahahahaaaaaaa.......

OOPS...sorry....point me in direction of the plot and I'll try and sort out a character......

[Celestial Goblin]

Cool!

[Rayve13]

I'm so here. I'll flesh out in a couple of days after I get back from family things for Christmas, but I'd be happy to do a techie (with a penchant for testing his devices on himself an a metal part or two) or a mysterious asian, in this case a son of Fu Manchu, schooled in his father's evil ways but determined to stop his villany wherever it may be found.

[Muse]

Is an antihero with a bad streak okay? 

Chester Arthur Kim, AKA "Chase" is the son of a Korean knight who married a bodyguard to the daughter of the lord he served.  Both were exiled when the Japanese conquered Korea and saught shelter in New York.  They named their son Chester Arthur Kim, and taught him the secrets of both their martial arts. 

He mastered them brilliantly, but always held a grudge against New York society for treating him like an outsider.  He nurses that grudge to this very day.  Upon coming of age, rather than go to work in the factories, like his parents, or become a bouncer, he moved to Hollywood with dreams of becoming a movie star.  He did, in fact, get two parts...  As an evil chinaman with a gun. 

Saving up the money from those rolls, he left holywood again, trying to find a way to force american society to recognize him, wether as hero or villain, who can say? 

His enemy, though he doesn't know she's come back to haunt him, is a secret occult orginization backing the Nazi party in germany.  He stumbled across a blue eyed blonde german spy and took advantage of her in return for smugling her out of the country.  He wonders to this day if she remembers him fondly, or resents him all to hell. 

[NightBird]

Sweet!  It sounds like we'll have enough interest to move forward, and I really like the idea of contributions to the enemy cause.

I'll spend some time tomorrow fleshing my ideas out into something more concrete then post it here so everyone can have more inspiration material. All the ideas sound great (including the antihero, Muse!), very workable and along the lines of what I was hoping to see. *happy grin*

My question now is where all of you folks think we should put the game. Which category seems the best fit? I'm thinking it probably ought to be NC: Exotic Freeform, but I'd like to hear from the rest of you before I request the game be created.

And no need to apologize, Elvi.  I like Vincent Price laughter.  *grins*

*chuckles at the "Really Quite Large War"*  Nice...

One idea I'd had for the mastermind was a Fu Manchu sort, so having his son fighting against him would be a nice touch.

[Celestial Goblin]

Make it exotic if you wish so, at worse we'll just move the game down or up.

[HairyHeretic]

I'm interested.

Please allow me to introduce Heinrich von Richthofen, nephew of the famous (or infamous if you prefer) Manfred von Richthofen. With both father and uncle air aces, flying is in his blood, and he has taken to it as naturally as breathing. Currently he is touring the world with his own flying circus, thrilling people with death defying stunts and mock combats.

Raised as a Prussian aristocrat, he is quite at home amongst the glittering throngs of high society, though this does give him something of a superiority attitude (though that is simply because he is superior he would say).

Blond haired and blue eyed, he stands slightly under 6 feet tall, his good looks marred (or perhaps enhanced) by the dueling scars on both cheeks, a legacy of his military acadamy education.

[NightBird]

*waves at HH with a grin*

Good to see you here!  The character sounds awesome. 

I'm working more on the background and story direction, and will request a game be created within a day or two.

[HairyHeretic]

Cool. Looking forwards to it.

[Protagonist]

If I'm not too late to the party (hi NightBird!), can I also express strong interest?  I love the pulp adventure genre and period and have wanted to write in a game for ages... just haven't found one, or the right one.

I'd love to work up a take on the "noble savage" archetype - something kind of Mowgli or Tarzan-inspired, though likely a take filtered through my style and modified somewhat.

[NightBird]

*grins hugely* Welcome to the party, Protagonist!  You're welcome in any game of mine, and I think the character concept is great.

I'm working on the core story line, still. I've been too tired to be creative with the work around the house the last few days (I am so freaking sick of boxes!), but it's coming together. Some specific mechanisms will need input from all of you, but the general idea centers on the League of Nations and a secret Commission (like those for Disarmament, Opium and Slavery). After bouncing all over the map (literally), I'm back to working from the Manchurian Crisis of the early 1930s, where the player characters will be trying to stop a Chinese 'Fu Manchu' type from going too far to protect his country from the Japanese, who will have science and magics of their own.

Thoughts, suggestions and discussion are welcome!

I've noted it in the absences thread, but I'll be at a conference in Atlanta from tomorrow late afternoon until Sunday afternoon. The hotel has internet access, so I'll hop on for a bit in the evenings, but I'll likely not be finalizing anything until the first part of next week.

[Hunter]

*hands NightBird a can of pepsi*  Here, this should help.

[Protagonist]

*hands NightBird a can of pepsi*  Here, this should help.

Awww maaan!  Hunter's got Pepsi!  Get this man some run, STAT!

I'm sorry this move kicking your patootie, 'Bird.  I went through a never-ending move (though admittedly, a far lesser distance) just over a year ago and I still have nightmares about towers of boxes.  Home comfort is such a fragile thing - so easy to disturb and so arduous to create or restore.  However, this too, shall end. 

Someone hurry up with Hunter's rum!  I am almost outta beer!

So, how much "true" period knowledge do you think will be required and/or necessary for the proposed game?  I see very clearly in your OFFs that you are not a fan of fakey historical (but all I know is fakey!).  Am I going to be spending my weekends at the library researching?  Or does being super-conversant in film noir give me an advantage?

[NightBird]

*laughs*

Captain Morgan's on its way! 

Two moves in three years is a tad much, and this one had some of the most screwed-up timing it could have. Our stuff in storage, spending the first month of the semester in a hotel while still trying to run down an occupancy permit that they city was going to deny for a sidewalk being more than 1/2 inch off level... it was insane, but it's almost sorted out now. I'll be very happy if I can find a teaching position in the area after I'm done.

As for period knowledge, that's a very good question. It's pulp, not historical. The Japanese are going to have primitive mecha of a sort. Film noir, comics like early Superman or Batman, familiarity with movies like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, radio shows like The Shadow, or books like Doc Savage or Doc Sidhe will be all that anybody needs. A few stereotypical period phrases, like "golly gee" or the kind of thing Robin used to say on the old Batman TV series, that's fun for flavor. This game is to cut loose and have fun being cinematically over the top.

The time in the car today driving to Atlanta helped me pull enough together that I'll be requesting a game board as soon as I'm home.

In the meantime, though, please do keep asking questions, or kicking around character concepts.  I'm hoping to keep this to a small group, no more than four or five players since I'll be running this around classes and teaching.

[Hunter]

*holds up his bottle of Captain Morgans*  She knows what I like, all right.  *kisses her*

Let's see....Given the propitiation of anti-heroes present, I'll have to play a/the hero.

I'm currently thinking of a pilot of a steam powered mecha (think Sakura Wars  ) who's also a super geek.  More details as they emerge.  ^_^

[Swedish Steel]

A pulp game eh? As a long time GM of the excellent game Adventure! I do like the sound of this, maybe even enough for me to get more active here on E again. But whom to choose? The Woodsman? Union Jack? London Fog? Aurora Albright? Papa Salem? Doctor Leviathan? Or Farooq Abdul-Aziz Al Hakam, the Avatar of Death?
Or, on the darker side of things, maybe one of the Fiendish Four? Baron von Chaos? The Vanishing Vixen? Doctor Sinister? Obsidian? Or Weremacht, the German Wolfman? I honestly don't know.
Erhm. After that outburst of geekiness you might not want me, but you might be able to tell that Pulp is a genre I find fascinating.  :)