This isn't a jab at recent posters concerning pulp.  Do and play what you like.  But this is about me being unusually humble and admitting that I have no idea what the hell people are talking about when they describe an RPG as pulp.  It feels like the word is pretty hot stuff right now, so I need to know what you mean.

To me, pulp is something I think I recognize when I see it, but can't describe it.  I'm honestly not sure it's a genre.  It's a medium, set in a certain period of popular culture.  To draw a comparison via paraphrase, Warthur suggested in this thread's OP (and I totally agree) that anime is a medium, not a genre.  Like anime, pulp fiction explores [explored] a lot of genres: speculative history, detective fiction, sword & sorcery, so on.  The only unifying "trope" I can think of that applies to pulp would be sensationalism.  So I get confused, honest to Bob, when one calls X setting pulp or Y game pulp.  It really isn't meaningful to me.

Now, for me, there's a risk of confusing pulp with something else. When I conjure up pulp I think of jaded antiheroes, jetpacks, unlikely science.  Taken to an extreme, it's a mashup of 30-50's culture applied to a different genre, as Fallout demonstrates with no small amount of irony.  But that isn't really pulp.  That's something I'd prefer to call retro-chic.

• What does it mean to you when you use the term?  And why is it a good tone/genre/medium for RPGs?


• Is pulp a genre or something else (like a mood or a tone)?


• Can you define it or list some tropes?

Again, this isn't a challenge.  I really want to know.

I agree that it's a medium, not a genre.
Same as 'cinematic'...
When people say 'pulp' in regards to games I take them as meaning action/adventure with a certain level of wackness and little regard for plausibility/believability... and that their PCs are probably not likely to be killed.
It's kind of like the older trend of calling everything 'punk' a short while back... pretty much meaningless except to sell books and to argue about on RPG.net.

'Pulp', the new 'punk'?

This is a question I've asked on several occasions and I haven't got a very satisfying answer so far. English isn't my first language, so I don't even have  intuition as backup to kind of guess what it's all about. Sometimes it's opposed to gritty, sometimes it's juxtaposed to gonzo (but not really overlapping). Some games define themselves as pulp and it's kind of helping. But I'd have a hard time after reading a book or watching a movie to assert if it was pulp or not. I tend to translate pulp in context of games just like Simlasa does.

Techincally pulp does cover a lot of ground but for me the term is mostly associated with adventure stories set in exotic lands set in the 1930s and 1940s, so basically your Tarzans, Doc Savages and even Flash Gordon (in it's orginal form).  

Modern equivalents include the Indiana Jones and The Mummy moives.

When I think of the core to what makes an RPG pulp without saying lets play a Doc Savage or Buck Rogers type game.  I think of characters that are heroic without being superheroic, they can bring a knife to a gunfight because they look cool with a knife and where it's perfectly acceptable to hang off the side of a guard in a high speed chance without having to ever worry about falling off.

These are all traits your characters can do from the start not something you level up to, that's the baseline.  It's also not something you really level out of either.  You play within that realm and advancement is akin to skate borders collecting scars and learning the odd new trick.   Perhaps most importantly though you can call a woman a chick. dame or broad and if she slaps you - you know it's cuz she's going to kiss you.

The biggest trick to pulp is sticking in that zone I fine.  To many games even pulp games often level your characters out of that zone to be closer to Superheroes and ending up with superheroes in a pulp setting just doesn't quite work.

I think Soylent green has it right. Pulp really just describes the crumby paper that the original novels were printed on. They covered the entire gambit of genres. But what pulp has come to mean now-a-days is action/adventure tales (of all sorts) set in the 1920 to 1950 time period.

I think it means bigger than life but still grounded in some realism.  Pulp of all genres is more about fast moving action than details.  You don't worry about how their clothes get clean after fighting in the garbage pit or if they packed enough clean pairs of underwear to get through the jungle to the lost temple.  For a game, you can also gloss over the time between the decision to travel across the country and the arrival at the destination except for the part where they get ambushed by thugs.  

Pulp is neither high fantasy, hard SF, nor a detailed realistic account.  It's mainly an American creation though there was also a fair amount of European pulp and especially pre-pulp (H.R. Haggard and Victor Hugo were definite influences).  Instead of following fantasy traditions along the lines King Arthur with motivations determined by themes and a certain fatalism, pulp grew out of more homespun folk tales with characters driven byidentifiable personalities and normal desires.  Conan has more in common with Paul Bunyan than Sir Galahad.  I think a key part of Pulp's popularity was the spread of literacy so that reading was for working stiffs as well as academics; this new audience brought new sensibilities.  

Before it evolved into its own genre with its own memes, super heroes started with a definite pulp flavor.  Early Batman had more in common with the Spirit than it does with current comics.  

Most of the original pulp took place between 1920 and WWII because that was when it was written - much of the action was written in the present for the author.  I don't think there is anything special about this time for a pulp setting.  You could have a pulp setting on a college campus in the 80s or in ancient Rome.  

To keep action fast, don't think about the details.  For example, a premise for a story/adventure might be thinking about what would happen if a guy had a small gun that could kill anyone no matter where it hit them or how much armor they had.  Hard SF would present a long explanation about how this would be plausible.  Pulp would get right into the mental exercise - if it was so, what would everyone do about it and how would you stop them?

Quote from: Nicephorus;371038Most of the original pulp took place between 1920 and WWII because that was when it was written - much of the action was written in the present for the author.  I don't think there is anything special about this time for a pulp setting.  You could have a pulp setting on a college campus in the 80s or in ancient Rome.

My favorite pulp tales are historical fiction: REH's 'Oriental' and Howard Lamb's Kossack stories.

So do y'all consider James Bond to be 'pulp'?

The only folks I see defining it this way... as a genre... are gamers.
'Cinematic' seems pretty much interchangeable with 'pulp' in gamer speak... and both imply characters with sub-superhuman powers who don't fear death (because it's not going to happen).
I guess 'pulp' also implies a somewhat kitchen-sink approach to setting elements.

Quote from: Nicephorus;371038Pulp is neither high fantasy, hard SF, nor a detailed realistic account.  It's mainly an American creation though there was also a fair amount of European pulp and especially pre-pulp (H.R. Haggard and Victor Hugo were definite influences).  Instead of following fantasy traditions along the lines King Arthur with motivations determined by themes and a certain fatalism, pulp grew out of more homespun folk tales with characters driven byidentifiable personalities and normal desires.  Conan has more in common with Paul Bunyan than Sir Galahad.  I think a key part of Pulp's popularity was the spread of literacy so that reading was for working stiffs as well as academics; this new audience brought new sensibilities.  

Before it evolved into its own genre with its own memes, super heroes started with a definite pulp flavor.  Early Batman had more in common with the Spirit than it does with current comics.  

Okay, this feels like it has the chime of truth, but I'm still not sure it is actually a genre (contrast with a tone or mood).  What tropes are unique to pulp?

Here's what pulp generally means to me, regardless of setting / genre.

• High action
• Unashamed cliches
• Melodrama
• Snappy dialogue
• Low introspection
• No protracted angst
• Either no "important issues," or they're dealt with in a very superficial way
• Generally black-and-white morality
• Either lots of humor or so self-serious it's still humorous
• High stakes and generally epic scale
• At some point, virgins in coconut bras

That last one's the most important by far, of course.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;371057At some point, virgins in coconut bras

That last one's the most important by far, of course.

Would a chainmail bra be an acceptable alternative?

Quote from: winkingbishop;371054Okay, this feels like it has the chime of truth, but I'm still not sure it is actually a genre (contrast with a tone or mood). What tropes are unique to pulp?

 
I think insufficient metal covered it pretty well.  When you get down to it, genre is a fuzzy term.  Most people would agree that detective novels and SF are genres, but there's no single thing that puts a book in either category.  
 
Pulp is a genre in the looser sense that anime is.  At it's most basic level, anime just means cartoons made in Japan (though most of the work is done in Korea).  But there are typical aspects of the writing and art styles throughout the various subgenres of anime.  It makes sense to describe Avatar(last airbender) and Teen Titans as anime even though they're American made.  
 
I'm going to leave the argument of whether pulp is a genre to the English majors.  Pulp has a typical style that can describe things whether they're actually from pulp magazines of the 20s and 30s.  Here's a good way to get the feel of pulp: think of the ways that Star Wars is different from 2001.

I'd say that "pulp" is a style of delivery, not a genre.