"Pulp Alley – Thoughts and Brief Review" Topic

Pulp Alley – The Game, The Rules, The Pulpiness

Pulp Alley, by Dave and Mila Phipps, has been around for a few years now. The copyright date on the original rules is 2009, so it isn't exactly a new item. Interestingly enough though, I haven't seen many reviews on the rules themselves. I have seen a lot of After Action Reports (AARs) but no real rules reviews. This is my attempt at reviewing these fun, fast, furious, flexible, fundamentals.

Pulp Alley, at the most basic is the original Pulp Alley rulebook and the Fortune Deck of cards. The rules are available in a printed copy or a PDF. There are also PDFs of the cards available for anyone wanting to make their own deck. Personally I find it easier just to buy the cards but for anyone so inclined the option is there to do it yourself. There are even free quick start rules available.

Having been around for a while there are a lot of expansion books (5) and cards available also. I won't go into detail about all of them though, since anyone new to the game may want to try out the basics first. I will mention the latest, as of April 2016, book though. That is Pulp Leagues. This offers some new rules but also compiles the information spread out over the other expansions. While not necessary for what I would term, basic play, it does help for anyone with all of the other books because of the compiled information.

What do you need to play Pulp Alley?

First of all miniatures, or something, to represent your league. Each player will have a league composed of individuals, which will be the team they are playing with for that scenario. The thing I like best about Pulp Alley is that you don't need tons of figures to play. A league can be as small as one or two figures but most will average around five. There are different compositions of leagues you can do that may increase that number but five or six seems to be usual.

Since a game can be played with only one or two leagues you might only need twelve to eighteen figures to play. While the game is written with 28mm figures in mind the rules state that you can play 15mm to 54mm without changes. Putting together you leagues is a whole lot easier than recreating the Battle of Gettysburg!

Throw in the terrain for the game and away you go. Since Pulp Alley can play virtually anywhere you can have jungles, lost planets, the city, or any other location you want. Putting together the game can be really fun. With lost civilizations always a staple of the pulps you can throw the German U-boat and sailors against dinosaurs in the lost world without any issue. The usual game only requires a 3 foot by 3 foot playing area, which shouldn't be too hard to find.

You will also need the usual tape measures and 6, 8, 10, and 12 sided dice.

While the rules are written for 1920s – 1940s pulp style games, the rules really transcend that. They are a great set of skirmish rules that work well for a lot of different types of games. You just have to check out the Pulp Alley discussion forum to see how versatile they really are.

A lot of the fun with the game is creating a league. I know when I started creating them it seemed a bit tedious but I really came to love crafting the various characters. You can pretty much build whatever you want. Do you have a favorite pulp character that you want to recreate or would you like to create someone totally new. The choice is yours. This is a great opportunity to create some of the pulp greats like Doc Savage and his aides, The Shadow, or even The A-Team from the 1980s TV show. Really it is limited only by your imagination.

A league will consist of various characters. Basically they can be a Leader, Sidekick, Ally, or Follower. Other rules allow for Terrors, which are larger than life things like dinosaurs and sea monsters (though there isn't any rule saying they can't be human) and Gangs which allow a group of five additional figures added to a league. The represent the hangers on that will fight for a while but will run away faster than the rest of the league.

Each member of the league will receive certain abilities. The abilities are divided into various levels, with the Leader having the most choices, on down to the Follower with the fewest. These abilities allow the character to do various things and form his skills for success.

The abilities vary from things like Sly, and Speedy to Moxie and Cloud Minds. Pretty much everything is there. They even give an example of using the same ability for various characters and changing the name to something else. The example is using Quick-shot and calling if Tommy-gun for a G-man but Fanning for a western character, and Throwing Stars for a Ninja. As I said, the game is quite versatile.

How do I play?

First of all determine starting initiative for the game. Most of the time this is determined by the players rolling a six-sided die at the start of the game. High number has initiative. When you have control of the initiative you get to direct the flow of the game. You can determine if you or another player gets to activate for that action.

This allows you to influence the flow of the game. You might want to see what the other fellow is trying to do before doing anything with your forces. Or you may want to rush in and seize something before the enemy does. You will hold the initiative until you lose it by another player "clearly winning a fight" (the rules explain the meaning of this) or by completing a Plot Point.

Pulp Alley is based around Plot Points and Perils. Perhaps a pendulum precariously poised on a precipice. The Plot Points represent the objectives of your league. Completing them is a good thing. Completing them will allow you to draw a Reward Card (a very good thing).

Perils are the dangerous areas or challenges that someone must overcome throughout the game. After all, what is Indiana Jones without the rolling rock trap, or the rickety bridge? This allows for all kinds of dangerous areas to be created. Overcoming Perils is also a good thing.

The player that has the initiative will tell someone to act, whether himself or another player. That player will then do something with one of their characters. That could be moving, performing an action, or attacking. I'm not going to go into every type of action that you can do, check out the rules for more information, but suffice it to say that it can get quite intense during a game.

Players will alternate actions, based on the initiative holder's direction, until each character in each league has activated once that turn. The varying actions throughout the turn allows you to have different people doing different actions. If you have a crack shot maybe they shoot at the enemy. Another member of your league, can move or engage in brawling. Someone else may attempt a plot point. There is a lot going on and everyone can play Fortune Cards during the turn to influence things.

The Fortune Cards are used throughout the game. At the start of the first turn each player draws three cards and draws one card each turn thereafter. There is no maximum number of cards you can hold. These cards will represent either Fortune or a Challenge. The top part of the card is the Fortune part. It tells you when you can play the card. For example, "Play when an enemy activates" or "Play when an opponent plays a Fortune Card". This allows for you to throw a peril at your opponents or to try to stop them from doing something. It creates a high level of interactivity where the right cards can really make the difference.

Once each character has activated you go into the End of Turn where you see if anyone that has been injured regains any strength through a Recovery Check, or if any down characters end up Down & Out.

Once the end of the scenario is reached, in the basic scenarios 6 turns, you go to a Wrap-Up phase where your characters and leagues can improve their abilities, determine the fate of characters that were Down & Out, gain gear, associates, and otherwise become more powerful in their fight for good or evil.

Final Thoughts

Pulp Alley is a fun game. I hope that this brief look at the system helps potential players to understand the system a bit more. There is a great community of players online where you can read a lot of AARs of games. Taking the information here and reading them will hopefully whet your appetite for this system.

It offers a lot. The expansions, Perilous Island campaign book, Vice Alley campaign book, Pulp Gadgets, Guns, and Vehicles, and Pulp Leagues just add to the fun. There are also a lot of various expansion cards that add to the Fortune Deck, Pulp Alley miniature figures, and a very active community online.

Have you ever wished you could pick up the phone and call the game designer? Well, while we don't have the phone number, we do have access to a discussion forum where we can post questions and get a response, usually from Dave or Mila, as well as from helpful players all over the world. It really is nice to have someone that cares about their product that much to support the players personally.

Before I found Pulp Alley I tried some of the other "big name" pulpish games out there. While fun, I found something lacking in them. I'm not quite sure what it was, but they just didn't do it for me. One set of rules I played in serveral games at conventions and really enjoyed. Of course the rules author or a friend was running the game. When I bought the rules I found that while good, seemed a bit tough to get into. The basic Pulp Alley rulebook comes in at 45 comic book sized pages. Other books I have are a few hundred magazine sized pages with almost no seeming organization.

This article is purely my thoughts about a set of rules that I really enjoy. I didn't attempt to cover everything, or every expansion but wanted to highlight the "basic" rules. Any mistakes are mine.

I hope you enjoy it and if you haven't tried Pulp Alley, give it a shot. For more information go to pulpalley.com/.

Enjoy and keep on pulping!

One of the best descriptions/reviews of the game I've seen.

Well done!

Most groups have found that using an 'object' of some sort that can be passed from player-to-player is useful in keeping track of who has Initiative.

Personally I use an easily mocked-up version of a 1930s style microphone to be great for aiding a 'pulpish' feel in describing the action:

-- Jeff

PS, yes, that is me (photo taken by opposing player).

Nice review (as you say, there aren't many of them!) of a superb game.

Thanks for this, I have the game and plan on using it, but I haven't really dived into it yet.

Yes--this was an excellent and much needed review--I hope it got posted on the Horror, old West and Modern message boards as well as this one. But I was inspired to see Jeff holding what I at first took to be a meat cleaver for his initiative token. We usually use a cute electronic candle, but a cleaver would really add some authority!

Jeff, that is a great photo of you and the initiative marker. Very inspiring!

As the reviewer mentioned, one of the nice things about the rules is how well they can stretch to cover a number of periods. I've played some Pulp Alley games set in the world of Greek mythology, with not a fedora or Tommy Gun in sight, and they work splendidly. They are a marvelous set of rules.

Thank you for the review!

Thanks for your comments.

I have seen so many great AARs but so little about the system itself. I know I bought the rules basically sight unseen. I had purchased other sets of rules, that were ok but not what I was looking for, and then somehow stumbled on the Pulp Alley web page. I think it was in the middle of the night. They sounded good and weren't too expensive, so I purchased them.

There is a lot more I could have written but I figured it was long enough for now.

A meat cleaver would be an interesting item to use for initiative. It would certainly keep people in line and depending on who you were playing with you might not want to get the initiative. They might just give you the cleaver…

I plan on using the rules for French and Indian War skirmishes between Roger's Rangers and the French. I have figures but I just am not sure where they ended up buried at among all of the miniatures I have to paint. I know they exist though.

Maybe that could be a Pulp Alley game. Miniature gamers seeking the lost figures to paint. He who holds the rare, limited edition figure wins.

I've read through the rules three times, but haven't set up a game yet. Do want to try them. Seems to me this game would be an easy way to engage kids and other people who are not bloody minded wargamers. This game doesn't give weapon or wound details like some others such as .45 Adventure. So one is not describing the effects of two .45 caliber bullets to the leg that is making a character bleed out and die. Less grit and gore may be attractive for family gaming.

Character building seems a bit less flexible than with some role playing games like Savage Worlds. However, once I've tried it out I suspect it will seem OK.

Thanks for the review!

For me, after nearly 30 years of tabletop gaming, the thing that stands out about Pulp Alley is its almost limitless flexibility. You can use its toolbox ruleset to construct the campaign you want, in any setting, and you are not enslaved to somebody else's copyrighted mythology, required miniatures, or planned obsolescence business model (I'm looking at you, GW).
It is particularly good for creating narrative or story-driven adventures, as its Plot Point objectives system can be implemented in many different ways to achieve different kinds of story modes -- mystery, action-adventure, treasure hunt, or whatever you can imagine. If you are an experienced gamer, you probably already know what game universe you want to play in, and what kind of story you would like to tell in it, and Pulp Alley gives you all the tools to do just that. It's an amazing set of tools for gamers, and I just never get tired of experimenting with it.
rags

Excellent review. I couldn't agree more with the comments already made. It is an excellent rule set that achieves exactly what it sets out to do; provide a fun, flexible game that works with the gamer's imagination. It has gotten my mind racing with different ideas for characters and plots.