"VSF vs Pulp" Topic

A friend & I recently got into a discussion about how Victorian Science Fiction & Pulp gaming are different, & I'm curious to find out what others think. Obviously, the timeperiod & technology is different, but it feels like there's something more basic than that which I can't quite identify. Maybe it's the mindset behind the games, machines vs man. VSF seems to be about fantastical technologies that could have been, & Pulp seems to be about adventures of fantastical heros & villians. While there are certainly many fantasitical characters in VSF, it doesn't seem proper to have a VSF character jumping between Cavorite boats to save the damsel. & similarly, the unrealized technology in Pulp doesn't seem too far-fetched since it's based in modern times. Any thoughts?

They do seem very similar – apart from timeperiod, but to me the difference is that VSF is has fantastical equipment (for the time), while pulp has fantastical monstres.

My main love is that the two genres can cross with ease in both miniatures and rules. VSF is explores and wonderment on lost worlds and cites of the unexplored with a h
good investment in Victorian values and opinions we know and can relate to.
Pulp is again lost worlds but includes the fantastical including villains and some of the most memorable heroes we can think off, it can be an ancient world of wizards and monsters of a technomancers dream.

My vast array of miniatures can easily drop on either games or scenarios i want, also you can find a good use for that strange miniature you had to buy because it was there.

Tony

Well, my VSF has both fantastical equipment and fantastical monsters, and both have Diabolical Masterminds (tm) orchaestrating things. I really don't see a huge difference betweent hem, other than VSF is more 1850-1900, while Pulp is more 1900-1950.

VSF Weird Science – Cavorite, Electro-Gun, Aether Flyer
Pulp Weird Science – Rocket Pack, Robots, Mind-Control Ray

VSF Monster – Four-Armed Martian, Dinosaurs
Pulp Monster – Yeti, Alien Invader

VSF Master Mind – Moriarity
Pulp Master Mind – Fu Manchu

For me, and I speak only for me, VSF seems to be more about the hero rallying the troops and then a battle between armies (and I use the term armies loosely) takes place. Now I can come up with contradictions in both pulp and VSF to contradict this, as there are always exceptions.

When someone mentions VSF I tend to think of steam contraptions and armies of men with DaVincian style inventions (like winged glider/steam powered flying appartuses). Whereas when someone mentions pulp, I think of a lone hero or small intrepid band battling the odds and numerous minions of some madman bent on city/world domination.

But I think the lines between the two are blurred and it's easy to cross from one to the other.

Rich

Both – fun and well supported so no preference that way, just prefer VSF

Tony

asharwood.co.nr

For me the difference is a function of time and place (kinda).

VSF adventures are (mostly) set in USA, Europe and Africa in the latter half of the 19th century whereas Pulp is more global and takes place in the 20th century – 30's -40's.

Arbitrary? prolly …

But it does refelect a difference in technology though they are all fanciful. Both genres are tied closely to the time in which they are written and I think that's the distinguishing characteristic.

I tend to agree with Operator 5 and Flashman14 on the differences.

I prefer VSF and non-Earth setting (Mars).

There's also a question of tone. Everything in pulp stories is resolved by fists and guns. But while that's often true of Haggard and always of Burroughs (who is more pulp than VSF anyway), it isn't true of the Scientific Romances of Verne and Wells. Femmes fatales are everywhere in pulp, rare in VSF. Pulp villains (and sometimes heroes) often wear masks and adopt outrageous pseudonyms, VSF characters rarely do. And so on.

VSF and Pulp seem very similar to me… mad science, wierd monsters (VSF has all the Burroughs creatures), action galore…

Except that much of Pulp fiction is brimming over with sex… sex sex sex…
Mrs. Wattington turned in her corset for a garter belt just a few years after WWI ended.

>>Except that much of Pulp fiction is brimming over with sex… sex sex sex…
Mrs. Wattington turned in her corset for a garter belt just a few years after WWI ended.<<

Well, with so manmy less fellas to go around following the Great War, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do…

I stand corrected.

It's mostly a question of tone.

VSF sounds like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's words coming out of Basil Rathbone's mouth.

Pulp sounds like Raymond Chandler's words coming out of Humphrey Bogart's mouth.

Aside from that, when Marlowe follows a suspect in his Chrysler, he doesn't have to get the steam up, wind the gyro-clockworkoscopic device, and hope that the new gutta-percha mountings hold up. He just hits the gas and heads off towards Bay City.

If you like to compartmentize things, and sweat over how to classification, I guess this thread makes sense.
I would rather just play, and not worry about it.

Some very good thinking here!

I too agree the time and the tech are not the main difference, but the Tone.

I see VSF are class attitudes driven. A fight for what the different people see as civilization.

I see Pulp are individual driven. The people fight for more personal reasons.

But, Pulp is big on both sex and grit, while VSF lack both. Steam Punk is Pulp in a VSF stetting. That is to say, if you but grit and sex into VSF you get Steam Punk

DyeHard
link

In VSF no one should see you perspire.

In Pulp you can smell the sweat.

DyeHard
link

Victorian Science fiction versus what?? The Western? Horror? Fantasy? Modern adventure?? You are comparing a sub-genre to more than one genre.

Scrolling through the threads, I mostly agree with OFM.

To me it's more like the difference between High Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery.

Not much of one, but it means a lot to fantasy geeks.

To me the difference is the whole difference in the zeitgeist following the Great War.

To me VSF is more an attitude of victorian "civilization". Yes there is action and adventure but there also that underlying sense of "We are going to be a gentleman/lady about this whole thing and then have a nice cup of tea." From my reading the heroes, but not all, are more cerebrial in nature.

Pulp also has a certain attitude and a sense of "civilization" in being what is right and good and decent against what is foul and dastardly and just plain bad. The heroes face world threatening villians, plots, and devices. While many of the pulpish heroes are brainy, (Doc Savage, The Shadow, and The Avenger pop to my frontal lobe) some were not the smartest rock in the pile. With the adventures… most of the tales were non-stop action and adventure blazing from one scene to the next. The heroes were also more physical than the Victorian counterparts.

Could you imagine The Shadow or Doc Savage up against Jack the Ripper or Mr. Hyde, or Professor Moriarity? They the villians would have their colleced es handed to them in a bread basket.

;-)

Opps… @$$es got bleeped!!!
;-)

My opinion follows closely those of Mexican Jack and Warrenss2. When I plan a VSF game I put on a spot of tea and open the Wall Street Journal. When I plan a Pulp game I grab a cold beer and open Popular Science.

The Wall St Journal! Egads, sir? Do you not have the Illustrated London News delivered to your home? The March 1896 edition?

I was thinking about VSF heroes (or the lack of same) and how underpowered they are in comparison to the approaching-superhero status of the '30s Pulp heroes. Professor Challenger and Allan Quatermain are possibly the most potent of them (leaving Tarzan aside, who crosses bother eras), but are still recognizably actual people rather than A) Strange, cloaked semi criminals wanted by the cops or B) Overachievers of the highest magnitude.

I'm not sure one is better than the other. They are the archetypes of their milieu. Indeed, it's hard to know exactly what Prof. Moriarty is up to, whereas every Pulp villain will destroy a large American city just to get started.