I am a big fan of Savage Worlds and am really looking forward to seeing and reviewing it.Originally Posted by Tony
I really hope Realms of Cthulhu comes out soon. I've been waiting to give it a try for some time now.It's not Pulp Cthulhu, but it'll be out at GenCon...If someone attending GenCon can get some updates on Pulp Cthulhu, that would be great
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Bear with me - this little "war story" from my gaming table will get around to Pulp Cthulhu:
A couple of months ago, I was wrapping up a Call of Cthulhu campaign. We had not done any of the "biggies" such as Masks or BTMOM. No, we did a sequence of smaller scenarios. I noticed a couple of my players seemed increasingly apathetic to the game. I was worried. Was I selecting inappropriate scenarios? Was my presentation lacking? Was there some other problem?
We wrapped up the CoC game in favor of Pathfinder (sigh). Now, I have nothing against Pathfinder. I just get a bit bored of the continual dungeon romps and slaying yet another tribe of orcs. That's not an indictment of the game system, just my group's habitual style of play.
One of my fellow gamers at the table - one of the ones who seemed increasingly apathetic at the table when we were playing CoC - he seemed suddenly very jazzed to be playing Pathfinder. All sparked up.
So I asked him about it. I was not the DM for Pathfinder, so I asked him candidly, was it something about my presentation of CoC that he found boring? Was it my running of the game? The selection of scenarios?
He was equally candid. He said that in his real life, he's just a normal guy. Regular job. Regular home life. Relative anonymity. Human frailties. All that. So when he games, he likes to play someone larger than life. Someone who is better than he is at something. Someone who can laugh in the face of danger, take a lot of punishment, and dish it out too. In Pathfinder, and other games, he's a larger than life character, not an ordinary bloke taking on the horror and wonder of the Cthulhu mythos.
Pulp Cthulhu. Bingo. I remember thinking ruefully about it when my friend expressed these thoughts. If we'd had Pulp Cthulhu, I could have gotten my CoC fix, while my friend could've gotten his wish to play a larger than life hero with perhaps some special powers or special better-than-normal abilities to fight the darkness (or at least minimize human frailties).
Realms of Cthulhu just came out. I'm sorely tempted to purchase it and learn the Savage World rules just so I can get my Cthulhu fix while my friend can get his hero fix. But (and this is no disrespect to Realms of Cthulhu, which looks gorgeous), I wont be getting my Call of Cthulhu fix. Cthuhlu fix? Yes. Call of Cthulhu fix? No.
I really, really like the Call of Cthulhu rules. I know that the big Basic Roleplaying book has suggestions to add pulp to one's BRP games. I know that Realms of Cthulhu offers pulp + Cthulhu play. But I was really hoping that Pulp Cthulhu would come out, so I could stick with my favorite game and have pulp.
I'm almost a decade older since Pulp Cthulhu was first announced (what was that, 2001? Dear god...). Last fall I was excited when I read the teasers in Game Trade Magazine and the "pulpy bits" in Secrets of Morocco. I thought "by god our patience has finally been rewarded. The damn thing is finally coming out." But now it's off the radar again...
I just was thinking that Pulp Cthulhu could've "saved" my Call of Cthulhu campaign. With Realms of Cthulhu out, perhaps that can pick up the baton and run with it. Perhaps Realms of Cthulhu, on some level, renders Pulp Cthulhu irrelevant. It's not the Grand Old Game that I love, but it's Cthulhu + pulp.
Ah well, just sharing some musings...anyone else out there still holding out a torch for Pulp Cthulhu? Or do I waste our collective time musing about it?
- Brian C.
As much as I, too, want Pulp Cthulhu to be finally released (especially after seeing the
preview of how they will approach it in SECRETS OF MOROCCO), I can't help but feel
that, for me, it isn't all that necessary, especially now that we have the generic BRP
rulesbook available.
My games have always featured a a lot of 'blood and thunder', a la Robert E. Howard's
mythos tales, and the basic CoC rules have always suited my needs just fine. If I needed
someone to have a special ability, I just gave it to them and modelled it using the skill
system. Is that balance? Not mathematically, but dramatically.
If I ever want to model something more closely, I can use the super power rules in BRP
for it if I really want to. But, ultimately it is up to the GM's sense of fairness and drama to
see how they want the game to progress.
I'm not saying you did anything wrong, Mograg. It is entirely possible that your players just
aren't that into horror, and even Pulp Cthulhu wouldn't have fixed that. But, I think because
it has been so long promised and delayed, people are building up Pulp Cthulhu to be
something that can never live up to their expectations.
MikeC
If you want a game with ordinary characters, and your players want Indiana Jones, I don't see how any play system will help.
Happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes.
-Ibn Schacabao
Eh, been waiting for it so long...in the end, I used d20 CoC which has some options for pulp adventures, and it worked quite well. Sure, it's not BRP...but better than nothing, at least
My players prefer pulp and I'd prefer to run something more pure.
As a consequence I run a pulp Cthulhu game using D6 (WEG). Its a nice simple system as long as there's virtually no pc magic (which of course suits Cthulhu)
Would be nice to see Pulp Cthulhu, but to be honest, there's plenty of source material out for other games that can be adapted to BRP /CoC as it stands.
I'm still jonesing for Pulp Cthulhu, Mograg. I'll buy it the instant it can be ordered. And I'll probably never actually use it to run a game.
For my con events I run things pretty pulpy using CoC. Like MikeC, I bestow special abilities and spells as I wish and I beef up skills with no regard for INTx10 and EDUx20. I want people who pay their money and devote precious convention time to my event to have a good time and some great memories in the four hours I'm responsible for their fun. Besides, that's more fun for me.
Mind you, I don't go all the way to edges (exactly) or super powers or psychic abilities. And they're all still "ordinary" people, but with a lot of color and a few hindrances, perhaps, or at least secrets. And most of the time most of them get guns.
If you PM me, I'll be happy to send you one of my successful events and you can see if my methods might suit you and your friend.
"Two in the head, you know he's dead." <heh-heh>
Me too.I'm still jonesing for Pulp Cthulhu, Mograg. I'll buy it the instant it can be ordered. And I'll probably never actually use it to run a game.
I'll probably buy it just for... closure.
As described by William Jones some time back on the Chaosium website, Pulp Cthulhu's pulpiness will be scalable. You can choose light pulp, or medium pulp, or heavy with pulp, based on your personal gaming style.
For example, if you only want your game to be lightly pulpy, you are essentially playing the standard CoC 6th edition rules, plus Investigators and key NPCs essentially are given a couple of minor mildly-pulpy abilities.
A heavy-pulp dose of the game means that during character generation, each investigator (same goes with key villains and NPCs) essentially gets a slew of uber traits/skills/flaws that essentially turns them into (borderline) epic superheroes (e.g. Indiana Jones, Doctor FuManchu, Dick Tracy, etc). Some traits may be "flaws", this is analogous to superhero Superman being susceptible to kryptonite, or Indiana Jones having an extreme phobia of snakes. Every legendary action-hero always has exaggerated flaws.
In fact, I like the idea that William Jones is doing. A scalable infusion of pulpiness, based on your personal style. It sounds reasonable to me.
Any news?
Yeah, I know that I said a few months ago I'd lost any hope of seeing this.
The more you ask about it, the more it gets delayed. It's Murphy's Law.Any news?
Yeah, I know that I said a few months ago I'd lost any hope of seeing this.
Just stop thinking about it, and when everyone has totally forgotten about PC, then it will magically be published once and for all.
I just ordered "Thrilling Tales, 2nd edition" for use with the Savage Worlds engine to get my pulp fix. First thing that caught my eye was the use of the art that graced the box-top of the old pulp game "Justice, Inc." Dug a little further, decided I could live with the Savage Worlds engine; bought the SW Explorer's Edition core rules for ten bucks, the "Thrilling Tales" book for twenty more. $30 bucks and I hope to be running some pulp for my group in the near future. I just can't hold out for Pulp Cthulhu any more...
Brian C.
Not when you can combine this with Realms of Cthulhu.
Happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes.
-Ibn Schacabao
I picked "Thrilling Tales, 2nd Ed." up from my FLGS recently. I own a good percentage of the Pulp RPG books that have been published. I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't realized that was why the cover looked familiar. I gather that Pinnacle has some Pulp books themselves, though I don't know for sure how you buy a copy, or if they're PDF or hard copy. I know that there is other "Thrilling Tales" material I'd like to see available for "Savage Worlds", and as a print publication.
Things like "Realms of Cthulhu" help to make "Savage Worlds" look all the more tempting, but I'd much rather have "Pulp Cthulhu". I like BRP.
Realms of Cthulhu can provide the Pulp Cthulhu fix everybody is craving for. The game can be played in different "modes." One of them being Heroic Horror which is an over-the-top pulp variant. This in conjunction with the already pulpy Savage Worlds rules.
Over the top? I suddenly envisioned Lovecraftian Investigators dressed up like Marvel superheroes in tights. And capes.
They have epic names like: Professor Dexter Ward, Super Miskatonic Man, Arkham Avenger, and "Fishboy".
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