"18th century Pulp anyone?" Topic

Hi all,

I've recently started thinking about setting a Pulp mini-campaign with the War of Spanish Succession as a background for the players' adventures, taking advantage on the surplus amount of 20mm figures I'm stocking for other purposes ( link , link ).

However, I have no idea about how to prepare it. Please has anyone ever played an 18th century Pulp game? How was it organized? Might I take a glance on your campaign? Which ruleset would be best to conduct the game?

Milions of thanks in advance,
Lluís

Brotherhood of the Wolf was a movie that might give you some ideas. There is no reason why you couldn't use one of the Rattrap production games to run it, like Gloire, which is a little bit earlier but should still work.

According to how you understand 'Pulp', these may be of some interest:

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Maybe also:
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and, for 'colorful' if amphibious (more 'pulpy' than 'Pulp'?) characters:
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I knew it, Pirettes!

My Pulp campaigns run from 1702 to 1945 with great success.

So Baron von Munchausen, Van Helsing the Vampire Hunter, the Three Musketeers and pirates?

Sounds like fun. Where do I sign up to play?

@Sven Lugar: "My Pulp campaigns run from 1702 to 1945 with great success.": please tell us more! Do you have a blog? For sure they would deserve one, and blogs are by far the most convenient way to share your wargaming passions and achievements.

Re. the initial question, I'm not very familiar with the 'Pulp' genre, but if movies such as the 'Indiana Jones' / 'The Mummy' and Lovecraft's novels / 'Call of Cthulhu' adventures are typical 'Pulp', there is no reason they could not be set in the 18th C.: Egyptian mummies, ancient Artifacts of Power and the Great Ancient Ones were already there, of course, and known in at least some circles.
Minor adjustments have to me made regarding relative numbers -even if your adventurers meet only creatures (human or otherwise) with no more than hand-to-hand weapons, to balance the lower efficiency of 18th C. gunpowder weapons.
Also, a few details -modes of travel, specially- have to be changed, unless you are ready for the additional (but potentially enjoyable) complication of bizarre contraptions of 'Baron Munchausen meets Da Vinci' type, to have airboats and submarines in 'your' 18th C. A few 'Jamesbondesque' gadgets, 'Wild Wild West' TV series fashion, are easier to throw in the mix (many instalments of the TV series are not far from 'Pulp').

Vampires? Historically the Austrian authorities indeed diligented investigations in (not yet Transexual) Transylvania about these 'superstitions' during the 18th C. (these original, 'authentic' vampires were quite different from Stoker's Dracula, btw). And in most mythos, vampires are almost as old as humankind (predators cannot appear *before* their preys!): so in the 18th C. you can already have a limited vampire brood to eradicate ('Van Helsing' movie type), or a world-wide presence ('Kindred' and 'Buffy' TV series). For interesting background elements I'm specially fond of the 'Hellsing' manga / anime en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellsing : a British secret society -'Christian' but with a vampire as its top operative- vs a top-secret wing of the Vatican and a 'pangermanist' sect using vampires as kamikazes!

Of course werewolves also were already there, so an 'Underworld' secret war between vampires and werevolves is likely (Odd that I preferentially quote movies featuring Kate Beckinsale!).

For 'straight' -if modern in the rendition- inspiration, 'Sleepy Hollow' and 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' link come immediatly to mind. The later has an interesting cast of characters -Monica Bellucci as a skilled courtesan-cum-deadly agent of the Vatican would illuminate any campaign!- but no 'fantasy' element. These could be easily added -Mani *almost* uses shamanic magic to communicate with the wolves- but another possibility comes from the origin of the 'beast'. In both French movies devoted to La Bete du Gevaudan link a depraved noble brought back from his oversea travels, here a lion, in Voison's (cheap) movie odd rituals and addictive drugs of the 'Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde' type. What if he had brought back, instead or in addition, a witch doctor to raise a force of zombies from the local graveyards?
(Btw I wonder if the author of 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' read Oumpah-pah en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oumpah-pah when a child? Like Mani, Oumpah-pah comes to France as the faithful companion / 'brother' of a young chevalier.)

Game-structure / scenarios wise, a 18th C. Pulp adventure could be basically similar to those set in the 1920 or to-day. For sure a lot of exemples are available on the web.
Rules-wise, 'Gloire' is favorably commented upon.

This post is devoted more to Lacepunk ([Pre-]Victorian Sci Fi by Lace Wars times) than to 18th C. 'fantasy', but maybe not totally irrelevant: link

So Baron von Munchausen, Van Helsing the Vampire Hunter, the Three Musketeers and pirates?

Indeed -you can add the Witchblade, Great Cthulhu, King Kong, Frankeinsein's Creature, the 'box' from Hellraiser, Atlants, the Wendigo, the Spanish Inquisition… and as mentionned above, Sarah Michelle Gellar (or Eliza Dushku, would you prefer), Keira Knightley (for the pirates), Kate Beckinsale and Monica Bellucci -if you find the appropriate miniatures!

Wow! There's a lot of stuff to be carefully studied indeed! …As some of you do suggest in your posts, I should first read some stories set up in the period and "let them boil up" -as a local saying here says…

I am still quite doubtful about what kind of campaign to design: maybe closer to proper Pulp, maybe a more 'historic', non-fantastic approach -closer to a swashbuckling adventure. Sure that some prior readings will help me decide.

In any case, the background stated above is for sure. I'd like to set up a campaign focused on late Succession War in the Catalonian front, because there's a lot of nearly unknown epics there: a widespread, fierce "guerrilla" war, popular uprisings against regular garrisons anywhere, solitary strongholds stubbornly held against overhelming enemy forces, amphibious "commando-like" raids against enemy supply centers, smuggling of ammunitions and supplies through an insecured sea, and so much like this. There's also a good number of nearly mythical, heroic characters -either "guerrilla" leaders, or former Allied officers and troopers siding the Catalan defenders after their countries had left war…

I've found a free skirmishing ruleset at freewargamesrules.co.uk that might suit quite well my needings: its name is Black Powder, and it seems a quite fast & fun gaming system. I'm taking a look to it in next days -as well as to all of the links you've kindly shown me here. Thanks!

Lluís

Don't forget the Spanish Inquisition!
Either YouTube link or link …

And the Gypsies: for sure Gypsy women 'enjoyed' the same reputation of witches / evil-eye casters as everywhere else?

Swshbuckling? link

This might also be of use to you – link

Not only the above but straight up crime/detective espionage elements are always available. Imagine the mess in central Europe in terms of skulldudgery!

Soldadets

The impression that you're probably going to get from the previous posts is that "pulp" involves some sort of supernatural situation. That's not necessarily true. It can, but it doesn't have to. The term "pulp" is short for "pulp fiction", which means fiction from "pulp magazines" and other adventure fiction mainly from movies, radio dramas and comic strips that were produced during the period when "pulp magazines" were published which was from roughly WW I to the mid 1950's. Detective stories, horror stories, adventure stories, and even fiction with a historic background can all be "pulp". Here are a few of the more well known "pulps" from the era:

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That should give you some idea of the diversity of "pulp".

I vaguely remember a novel set in Spain during the Napoleonic war, with adventures and forces involved of the same type / scale as in Conan Doyle's 'Brigadier Gerard'(and in Sharpe?), where a kind of sorcerer -or civilian suspected to be one- was attached to the small British 'task force' (does this ring any bell, btw? Can't even remember the title).

(There was also an *awful* movie -with Sinatra?- where Spanish guerilleros were haunling a gigantic 'Gun of Navarone'-sized cannon across the mountains; unwillingly comical, but perhaps the basic idea can be retrieved?)

To get an 'interesting atmosphere', supernatural does not have to be 'real', magic does not have to work: suffices that most people in the setting *believe* in them.
In the early 18th C. Catalonia, no dark monestary famous for its 'powerful' relics? No crumbling house in a town, or ruins in the countryside, remoted dale or dense wood reputed to be evil / haunted? No legends of a death-harbinging 'White Lady', of a 'Dark Hunter' lurking at crossroads by moonless nights? No gibbering hermit, no half-crazy old woman believing to be witch? Such dramatic times as in your setting favour the emergence of raving preachers; 'freaked out' mobs cherish and amplify the wildest rumours, and are prone to pogroms and witch-hunting. Brigands / smugglers can 'mimick' supernatural evidences to keep the superstitious peasants away from their secret trails and Ali Baba cave. Simple people can believe a local Zorro-type hero to really be a ghost…

According to my (limited) experience, *ambiguity* is propitious to the 'atmosphere' -it's even best to have the game-master / scenario writer *himself* unsure of the 'true nature' of those weird encounters / events / rumours…

>>(There was also an *awful* movie -with Sinatra?- where Spanish guerilleros were haunling a gigantic 'Gun of Navarone'-sized cannon across the mountains; unwillingly comical, but perhaps the basic idea can be retrieved?)>>

"The Pride and the Passion".

>>To get an 'interesting atmosphere', supernatural does not have to be 'real', magic does not have to work: suffices that most people in the setting *believe* in them.<<

As I said in a previous post, "pulp" is not synonymous with supernatural. Let me add that it doesn't even have to be implied.

Indeed -in the end I was thinking of only an atmosphere, as in the Dr Mabuse movies, specially the 'Thousand Eyes' link

A bit off topic – How do you keep the paint on your 20mm 18th century plastic pulp figures?

Thanks for your precisions, Shadow. True that I didn't have in mind the inclusion of supernatural facts in the adventure, but I must agree that confronting the adventurers with odd encounters would no doubt add some flavour to the storyboard -besides of contributing create some confusion among players about who are their 'real' adversaries…

This fairly goes into the suggestions abdul666lw has drawn. Yes, there are some weird stories in the Catalonia of late Renassaince/early Age of Reason. I remember to have read somewhere a complete review on some kind of witch-hunting fever all around the Principality, less than 100 years before the WSS outbreak. Ironically, the Spanish Inquisition played a role that was radically inverse to the expected one: they opened a wide enquiry to ellucidate the motives of such massive hunting, thus bringing to light the sinister role of a 'professional' witch-hunter who exploited popular superstitions at his own profit, by earning money in exchange for 'unveiling' hidden witches in every village he visited. In the end, Inquisition unmasked him, took him into trial and demonstrated the innocence of (maybe hundreds) of women executed after his false witness.

So, it seems that one could design a story board where the main characters would be not just Austro-Catalan military against Franco-Spanish opponents, but some Inquisition 'secret investigator' too, and even a 'fourth side' -on the dark side of world maybe?

Pyrate Captain: At present, I use to apply a coat of nearly undilluted white glue after washing the minis. Usually I afterwards undercoat the minis with a standard primer spray, sometimes I do not -undercoating seems not to be indispensable here.

An exception to this are BUM miniatures, because the stuff they are made of is not any real plastic. It seems a kind of conglomerate with some porosity level; therefore, I never wash them, I simply apply a coat of glue onto them, so that they are ready to paint after this -or you can undercoat them too, as normal.

>>So, it seems that one could design a story board where the main characters would be not just Austro-Catalan military against Franco-Spanish opponents, but some Inquisition 'secret investigator' too, and even a 'fourth side' -on the dark side of world maybe?<<

That's the spirit! Sounds like a winner!

"Pulp" writers wrote stories set in many different periods of history. Robert E. Howard, for instance, wrote about "The Crusades" in several stories, but they were luridly violent, which is what his readers wanted, and why they were published in "pulp magazines".

"The Pride and the Passion".

Which, of course, was a very bad adaptation of C. S. Forester's "The Gun", which would make a very good series of pulp(though not necesarily Skirmish) scenarios, as would it's usual companion, "Rifleman Dodd" (aka "Death to the French").

See also the works of Rafael Sabatini, many of which are available on gutenberg.org.

For a Napoeonic Era pulp game there are those marvelous Brigadier Gerard stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Why does Sleepy Hollow keep creeping into my mind when I think of 18th century pulp?

>>Why does Sleepy Hollow keep creeping into my mind when I think of 18th century pulp?<<

Dunno. Seems more like "literature" than the violent action and adventure that is normally associated with "pulp magazines" and related fiction of the era.

>>Why does Sleepy Hollow keep creeping into my mind when I think of 18th century pulp?<<
Probably because of the explicit / 'real' supernatural element often associated with 'Pulp' -specially as a *wargaming* subgenre, probably more than with the literature subgenre.
I suspect 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' would be closer to the mark for 'Pulp purists': kind of w-swashbuckling with a colorful secret agent vs a secret society, blood and an 'atmosphere' but no 'real' / working 'paranormal'.
Otherwise for inspiration in tricorns you'd have to resort to The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lady Oscar link , Moonfleet, Cuthtroat Island… or even Treasure Island (!)…

Now, the French comic 'Le Scorpion' may qualify for 'Pulp':
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Rattrap Productions' Gloire is black powder version of their .45 Adventure pulp rules. As for campaign background, read some good historical novels by Dumas, Stevenson, Sabatini, etc. or the movies based on them. Remember when you play pulp you're really playing the movies.

You want magic? In 1700 most people still believed in witches. Maybe high-falutin city folk didn't, but how much do they really know? In 1897 almost nobody in England believed in vampires, but does that mean Dracula wasn't real? You want monsters? How about the beast of Gévaudan? supposedly it was a wolf or hyena, but can we really be sure? It might have been a werewolf. I don't know much about 17th century Catalonia. Was there the same sort of independence movement as in the 19-20th centuries. There would be spies working for both sides. Thee would certainly be the inquistion and the Barbary pirates. Here's an idea. Suppose the ruler has an identical twin brother who has been kept hidden to prevent civil war. He might even be required to wear a mask. He might find this an advantage. Unseen he could move about at night to avenge wrongs against the people, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He could disguise himself dressed as a giant bat, using the most advanced clockwork technology. But I digress.

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Rattrap Productions' Gloire is black powder version of their .45 Adventure pulp rules. As for campaign background, read some good historical novels by Dumas, Stevenson, Sabatini, etc. or the movies based on them. Remember when you play pulp you're really playing the movies.

You want magic? In 1700 most people still believed in witches. Maybe high-falutin city folk didn't, but how much do they really know? In 1897 almost nobody in England believed in vampires, but does that mean Dracula wasn't real? You want monsters? How about the beast of Gévaudan? supposedly it was a wolf or hyena, but can we really be sure? I don't know much about 17th century Catalonia. Was there the same sort of independence movement as in the 19-20th centuries. There would be spies working for both sides. Here's an idea. Suppose the ruler has an identical twin brother who has been kept hidden to prevent civil war. He might even be required to wear a mask. He might find this an advantage. Unseen he could move about at night to avenge wrongs. He could disguise himself dressed as a giant bat, using the most advanced clockwork technology. But I digress.

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For a break from the supernatural, try some of the 'Historical' detective novels and short stories. I guess the 'Who Dunnit market is so saturated that several authors set their adventures in past times.